Week in wildlife: a friendly seal, a furious goldcrest and ‘the swanfather’ 9 October 2026 at 03:00

Week in wildlife: a friendly seal, a furious goldcrest and ‘the swanfather’

The Guardian

By: Joanna Ruck

9 October 2026 at 03:00

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Country diary: A passing osprey needs to eat – but the local terns won’t let it | Claire Stares 9 October 2026 at 00:30

Country diary: A passing osprey needs to eat – but the local terns won’t let it | Claire Stares

The Guardian

By: Claire Stares

9 October 2026 at 00:30

Chichester harbour, Hampshire: I witness a battle of wills as this magnificent raptor attempts to fuel up on sea bass, before it heads south on migration

The autumnal sunlight gilded the sea as our boat drifted off Fowley Island, a small, uninhabited tidal saltmarsh between Thorney Island and Hayling Island. A colony of grey seals lay sprawled along the intertidal mudflats, their size and prominent, sloping Roman noses making them easily distinguishable from the more lithe, cat-faced common seals that also inhabit the harbour.

Two sub-adults were tumbling and splashing in the shallows, play-fighting with the exuberance of puppies. They mouthed and nipped at each other’s heads and necks, lunging and rolling over one another before disappearing beneath the waves, only to pop up again in a spray of water and resume their boisterous tussle. These playful interactions are a form of social bonding, but they also serve as a rehearsal for future dominance contests.

Scientists discover 180,000 giant tortoises on one Seychelles island 8 October 2026 at 16:20

Scientists discover 180,000 giant tortoises on one Seychelles island

The Guardian

By: South West News Service

8 October 2026 at 16:20

Free-roaming Aldabra population far exceeds human population of Seychelles after decades-long recovery programme

A survey of the world’s largest free-roaming giant tortoise population has discovered that the once endangered species is thriving.

A population of Aldabra giant tortoises lives on an island in Seychelles called Aldabra Atoll.

Can hope save the planet? An endangered parrot that is beating the odds can help us find out | Helen Pilcher 8 October 2026 at 11:05

Can hope save the planet? An endangered parrot that is beating the odds can help us find out | Helen Pilcher

The Guardian

By: Helen Pilcher

8 October 2026 at 11:05

A new global biodiversity report strikes an encouraging note. But we cannot rest on our laurels – and resilience is key

The new Living Planet Report is out. Published every two years, it assesses the health of the natural world and, historically, it’s made for gloomy reading.

Take 2024’s report, which showed global wildlife populations had plummeted by 73% in 50 years and that ecosystems were being pushed toward collapse.

Monkeys as service animals? The ‘bizarre’, tortured history of humans and primates 8 October 2026 at 08:00

Monkeys as service animals? The ‘bizarre’, tortured history of humans and primates

The Guardian

By: Matthew Cantor

8 October 2026 at 08:00

Ape Sh*t, a new zine by writer and designer Carrie McLaren, looks at the ways monkeys and apes have communicated to humans that they’re individuals too

Zines have always lent themselves to weird and wonderful topics, from sci-fi reflections to punk fanzines to radical political tracts. The underground, often homemade publications have offered readers and writers a way to throw themselves into niche topics since long before the internet.

For Carrie McLaren, a veteran zine maker, the latest topic of choice is admittedly “bizarre”, disturbing and darkly funny: the tortured relationship between humans and monkeys.

Tents, night-vision goggles, bear tracking kits – and even books: America’s first nature library opens 7 October 2026 at 07:00

Tents, night-vision goggles, bear tracking kits – and even books: America’s first nature library opens

The Guardian

By: Donna Ferguson. Photographs by Kevin Mohatt

7 October 2026 at 07:00

As well as books, the new facility in Colorado offers hundreds of kits to connect people with the natural world. We asked five of the first visitors what they thought of it

Mark Fink knows exactly why he opened the first public nature library in the US. “There are a lot of barriers for people to access nature here. We want people to learn about the birds and the plants in their own back yard and to appreciate that you don’t need a three-day camping trip in the mountains to experience nature.”

The library offers people in Colorado’s Adams county the opportunity to borrow books and equipment to help them to engage with the natural world – for free.

Wanted: children to rear harvest mice at home for wild release in Devon 7 October 2026 at 01:00

Wanted: children to rear harvest mice at home for wild release in Devon

The Guardian

By: Patrick Barkham

7 October 2026 at 01:00

Teenagers Eva Wishart and Emily Smith launch project to breed and release 250 of the tiny animals by September

Children in Devon are being invited to become “citizen captive breeders”, rearing harvest mice at home for release into the wild to help revive endangered nature.

Wild Pets, a new conservation project launched by two 14-year-old friends, is seeking 20 Devon-based children to rear hundreds of mice after the duo’s own successful restoration efforts.

Beautiful butterflies get more attention from the public – and from scientists 7 October 2026 at 01:00

Beautiful butterflies get more attention from the public – and from scientists

The Guardian

By: Kate Ravilious

7 October 2026 at 01:00

Research has shown that colourful and patterned species are the subject of more studies, and receive more conservation funding

Large and beautiful butterflies attract far more attention than species that are smaller and dull. Now a new study has shown that this bias towards beauty results in the boring butterflies being overlooked in conservation programmes.

To understand the link between beauty and conservation, researchers surveyed more than 21,000 people from more than 100 countries, asking them to look at photos of European butterflies and rate their beauty on a scale of 1 to 10 based on their first impression. The results, which are published in Current Biology, reveal that larger more colourful and patterned butterflies, like the yellow swallowtail, were consistently rated more attractive than the smaller, less conspicuous brownish species, such as the alpine grayling. That bias also extended into scientific research, with more studies on attractive species, and more funding and resource going into conservation of showier species.

The pest I’ll never forget: the cockroaches I still dream about 6 October 2026 at 02:00

The pest I’ll never forget: the cockroaches I still dream about

The Guardian

By: Anna Moore

6 October 2026 at 02:00

My student house in Manchester had several thousand other occupants. Despite pest controllers regularly dousing the property, the glossy, greasy, relentless insects marched onwards, endlessly reproducing

‘You do know about the cockroaches?” I’ve forgotten most things people said to me in the 80s, but never that. It was said by one of the occupants of the student house in Longsight, Manchester, that I had signed up to live in the following year. When the landlord had shown me and my future housemates the property, the tenants had been out. He told us they were third years doing their finals and must not be disturbed under any circumstances. (What can I say? We were gullible back then.) Days before summer term ended though, I’d knocked on the door to show a friend where I’d be living. Instead, I learned that the house was infested.

The weird thing is, we moved in anyway. In truth, although I understood this was very bad news, I didn’t quite realise what a cockroach was. There was no internet, so I would have had to go to a library to know what I know now: their march, their canter, their crunch if you step on one. Their soft, sweet, sour smell (uric acid which they store in their fat, apparently). Sometimes, in the back of a shop, or a restaurant loo, I catch that scent and I know what it is.

Welcome to the Jungle 5 October 2026 at 07:26

Welcome to the Jungle

MetaFilter

By: chavenet

5 October 2026 at 07:26

Infinite Jungle: Click or tap the scene, or press Enter / Return, to show or hide the menu. Double-tap on touchscreens to show it. The menu fades away after 3 seconds unused, except while Settings or Help is open. ? opens this guide with commands expanded, even with the menu hidden. Tap any command to use it; arrow buttons move the view one step. The sound button stays in the top right. Drag to travel; scroll or pinch with two fingers to zoom.

Tell us: have foxes caused friction among neighbours where you live? 5 October 2026 at 11:34

Tell us: have foxes caused friction among neighbours where you live?

The Guardian

By: Guardian community team

5 October 2026 at 11:34

If your local fox population has caused differences of opinion among neighbours, please get in touch

Have foxes in your area caused friction between you and your neighbours? If so, we want to hear from you.

Some people like to leave food out for foxes, while others take measures to try and deter them from coming near their homes – and this can be a point of tension between those living nearby one another.