Biodiversity
Forget Pokémon Go – there’s a new app on the scene that’s helping people hunt for some of our rarest plants. Emily Swan, Natural England’s Arable Plant Lead Adviser, writes about the new smartphone app that’s just been released to help protect plants on the brink of extinction.
In the wilderness of Surrey, I went on a tiger hunt. A hunt for tiger beetles, that is. I work for Natural England as a warden on the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area. The heath tiger beetle should be widespread on my patch, but is sadly in massive decline.
Ian Carter, an ornithologist at Natural England, writes about some of the best bird books from 2015 and the highly contrasting fortunes of the birds they describe.