Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Iceland has hottest Christmas Eve ever with temperature of 19.8C recorded

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 13:13:20 +0000

Meteorological office reports high temperatures across country and record measured at Seyðisfjörður in east

Record temperatures of almost 20C were reached in Iceland on Christmas Eve, the local meteorological office has confirmed.

Seyðisfjörður, a small town in the east of Iceland, hit 19.8C on 24 December. Average December temperatures in Iceland are between -1C and 4C.

UK’s warmest spring on record led to rise in songbirds breeding, data shows

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 11:38:19 +0000

Dry and warm 2025 spring gave glimmer of hope for threatened wild birds but many remain in long-term decline

The warmest and sunniest spring on record this year led to an increase in the breeding of some of Britain’s best-loved songbirds, data has shown.

Scientists said the dry and warm spring had provided a glimmer of hope for threatened wild birds. In the 2025 breeding season, from May to August, there were higher than average breeding successes for 14 species including the chiffchaff, garden warbler, whitethroat, coal tit, blue tit, great tit and robin.

‘Zack is a phenomenal leader’: Siân Berry on the Green party’s next steps as membership doubles

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 11:00:39 +0000

Since Zack Polanski took over as leader, the party has doubled its membership and its four MPs want to take on Reform’s anger and build community spirit

“Someone has to be out there making the narrative for social security. Someone has to fight the corrosive attitudes to people on benefits,” says Siân Berry, who has just finished her first year as a Green MP in the House of Commons.

Young Atlantic salmon seen in three English rivers for first time in a decade

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 09:27:33 +0000

Species that is critically endangered in Britain is spotted in Mersey, Bollin and Goyt rivers in north-west

Young Atlantic salmon have been seen in three rivers in north-west England for the first time since 2015, marking a “significant environmental turnaround”.

The salmon species was declared critically endangered in Britain in 2023 but fish have been spotted in the Mersey, Bollin and Goyt rivers, meaning they have successfully travelled from the Arctic Circle to spawn.

‘There is a crack in everything’: capturing the dark of winter – in pictures

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 08:36:23 +0000

How do you photograph darkness? A question Sarah Lee considers with her work as the nights draw in: ‘I’ve always been drawn to photographing the darkness as the winter months draw in after the clocks go back and we head towards the solstice. I wondered why that was given that the world itself seems so dark at the moment. I realised this year that it is not the darkness I’m photographing, but, rather, the light. Always the light.’

Stingless bees from the Amazon granted legal rights in world first

admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 14:00:44 +0000

Planet’s oldest bee species and primary pollinators were under threat from deforestation and competition from ‘killer bees’

Stingless bees from the Amazon have become the first insects to be granted legal rights anywhere in the world, in a breakthrough supporters hope will be a catalyst for similar moves to protect bees elsewhere.

It means that across a broad swathe of the Peruvian Amazon, the rainforest’s long-overlooked native bees – which, unlike their cousins the European honeybees, have no sting – now have the right to exist and to flourish.

Queensland to continue to allow farmers to shoot flying foxes after revoking ban on controversial practice

admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 14:00:43 +0000

Conservationists and scientists criticise state for backtracking and say alternative non-lethal methods such as netting are more effective

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From ‘global cooling’ to ‘beautiful coal’: Trump’s startling climate claims of 2025

admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 12:30:35 +0000

Trump ratcheted up his questionable claims about the environment and how to deal, if at all, with the threats to it

In the past decade at the forefront of US politics, Donald Trump has unleashed a barrage of unusual, misleading or dubious assertions about the climate crisis, which he most famously called a “hoax”.

This year has seen Trump ratchet up his often questionable claims about the environment and how to deal, if at all, with the threats to it. In a year littered with lies and wild declarations, these are the five that stood out as the most startling.

‘Cities need nature to be happy’: David Attenborough seeks out London’s hidden wildlife

admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 12:00:35 +0000

Attenborough, 99, enthuses about tube-riding pigeons, foxes, parakeets and others in Wild London for the BBC

Filming the wildlife of London requires an intrepid, agile presenter, willing to lie on damp grass after dark to encounter hedgehogs, scale heights to hold a peregrine falcon chick, and stake out a Tottenham allotment to get within touching distance of wary wild foxes.

Step forward Sir David Attenborough, who spent his 100th summer seeking out the hidden nature of his home city for an unusually personal and intimate BBC documentary.

The hill I will die on: Pigeons are working-class heroes and deserve some respect | Toussaint Douglass

admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 08:00:31 +0000

These unfairly maligned animals were nuggets for our ancestors and served for the UK during the second world war

Is there something I would figuratively die on a hill for? Yes, there is – and as it happens, I’m sitting on a literal hill right now, feeding them. Pigeons. Why pigeons? Because it’s about time they get the respect they deserve.