Winter might seem a quiet time for wildlife, but if you visit our nature reserves you might be surprised at how much you can see!

In winter, our reserves are teeming with life. Flocks of hungry waterfowl are gathering in our inland pools, and mice, squirrels and smaller birds are making the most of the late berries and nuts. With less leaves on the trees and bushes you might even find it easier to spot something you…

A trail camera installed as part of our ARC Project partnership has captured the first ever footage of an otter in Sussex. Video camera’s were fitted after a member of the public contacted the ARC team to report what they thought were otter tracks...

A communities connection with local bird life is set to grow after pupils from Winterbourne Girls school in Croydon produced a bird board to be placed in their local park. Visitors to Thornton Heath Recreation ground in the north of the borough will be encouraged to identify the sights and sounds of the varied bird life in this urban green space. 

With help from the RSPB and Croydon Voluntary Actions Family Power initiative…

Another guest blog. This time, artist and sound sculpturist Marcus Coates on his recent Brighton show exploring the interplay between bird song and people, now bound for London in 2016:

My Dawn Chorus exhibition at Fabrica in Brighton has come down now and it’s next showing at London's Wellcome Trust in 2016.

Dawn Chorus is a celebration of birdsong and how we are connected to it in ways that aren’t obvious…

Our history and cultures are littered with nature references and so it's no surprise to find that this year's Brighton Festival has taken inspiration from the world around us.

Musician and Brighton Festival star Sam Lee has written a guest blog all about his performances with NIGHTINGALES to share the joy he gets from nature. You can share the joy you get by joining our "For the Love of...." event in London…

The places we all cherish have this February moved a step closer to safety, thanks to a couple of Government decisions.

These important pockets of land, so vital for nature and recreation or simply tranquil spots where people can meditate on life, are under increasing pressure as we struggle to meet the demands of a growing population.

Sites of Special Scientific Interest [SSSI] are some of the UK’s finest examples…

The start of a New Year always fills me with positive energy. It’s like unwrapping a shiny new block of plasticine when you were a kid; it’s all clean, flawless and full of potential, filling your senses with its scent, texture and malleability. But whose fingerprints will successfully dominate the creation that will be formed by the end of the year as the plasticine sets hard?

Tuesday January 6 marked…

We're all aware of the old canary down a coalmine story. Miners would drop tools and flee if their caged canaries fell from their perch as it indicated the presence of poisonous gas.

Well, there is now a European study underway to establish if the decline of our common house sparrow, down 68 % between 1994 and 2009 (BTO Breeding Bird Survey data), is in any way linked with air pollution.

We know that a lack of food…

The Government’s Farmland Bird Indicator tracks the fortunes of a range of bird species which live and breed in lowland farmland, such as turtle dove, skylark and yellowhammer. Its recent publication revealed yet another drop in numbers.

The term ‘Farmland bird indicator’ sounds rather dry and technical and the story that this indicator tells is perhaps hard for many of us to relate to. This is because the story…

Greater London has some magnificent places .. Centrally, there is St Paul's Cathedral, the Tate Modern, Trafalgar Square and of course the London Eye.

There are also open and natural spaces such as Hyde Park, Epping and Hainault forests, Hampstead Heath, Ingrebourne Marshes, the mighty Thames, Wimbledon Common and London's biggest green lung, Richmond Park.

In fact there are 36 places designated as being…

"It'll be nice for residents to have birdsong," was the ignorant off-the-cuff comment overheard by RSPB staff who'd been in the public gallery attending a Medway Council planning meeting.

Local residents, campaigners and developers had attended to hear councillors debate an application to build 5,000 new homes at Lodge Hill  in North Kent on a former Ministry of Defence site.

Everyone knows homes are…

One of the most over-used clichés is that of the “urban jungle”.

When applied to London, it gives the wrong impression, because it’s nothing to do with the amazing but dwindling wildlife, it applies instead to the savage human residents.

The drab concrete greys and patchwork tarmac roads are a far cry from the soil and decaying leaf matter of a jungle floor. The housing estates and office blocks…

As spectacles go, the roof of a house seemingly lifting-up, fragmenting and taking flight is pretty special and it’s a memory that will stick with Londoner Richard Spink.

That was the impression he was left with when thousands of starlings, which had settled on a neighbours’ house in Thamesmead, came and went in waves, their bodies filling the sky over his head.

Richard said: “What I captured in the…

It seems there are more bird species in the world than we had previously thought.

A report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature [IUCN] identifies 350 newly recognized bird species. Great news.

The bad news is that 25% of those newly discovered species are on the road to extinction. Add to this another report concluding Insects, worms and other small animals that carry out vital functions for life on…

I took a call this morning from a lovely lady called Elsie Pilbeam.

She and her partner, Tony, used to live near some flats off east London's Dunston Road on what was then the Haggerston Estate. They used to enjoy watching house martins zoom down to the nearby Regents' Canal to gather wet mud for building their nests under the eaves of the flats. The estate is now almost completely gone, apart from one block which…

London's packed. Stuffed with some eight million people and many billion other creatures, all encircled by the greenbelt and the ligature of the M25.

So it's no surprise that occasionally conflict arises between nature and people or the infrastructure that people rely upon.

In north London there's a row between residents and Network Rail. The latter want to undertake some emergency habitat work and, based on…

I was chatting with a new member of our London team the other day and inevitably the subject of motivation came up. That little devil on my shoulder bit my ear then shouted in its loutish voice... "Motivation? You're like a pig in clover. You are able to let motivation choose your career choice? You don't know how lucky you are".

When I was in my final year at school, the careers advice was: "You can choose…

Edging through queues of traffic on my cycle ride in to the RSPB’s Westminster office this week, my mind went over a statement I’d heard on the radio that we are not a crowded island. Living in densely populated London you can quickly forget that urban living is not the norm.

I am used to shops being open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so I find it “quaint” when I go home to the Welsh borders and stumble…

I’d like to start a campaign to increase spaces.

We have constant demands for more housing and more infrastructure, yet it’s rare to hear anyone cry “… hold on a minute. Can we have a bit more grass and maybe a hedge please?”

I admit the need for housing is huge and growing, especially in the south and always in London. Any extra housing brings with it a need for more energy, more water…

How did you mark International Day of Action for Rivers?

What do you mean you've never heard of it? It's a globally recognised date when we all think about what we should and could do to improve our waterways. Rivers like the Quaggy in south London, with it's banks decorated by plastic bags. Or maybe the River Lee in east London. Both have large sections encased in concrete channels and look more like drains…

Another Guest Blogger hijacks our pages this week. The lovely Alex Cooper is one of our hard working team of conservation officers endeavouring to create a world richer in wildlife for us all to enjoy:

The Thames Estuary is an incredible place for wildlife and it has some of the rarest bugs and beasties in the UK aswell as being one of the most important migration routes in the country for hundreds of thousands of birds…

Moving around London this week has been a joy following the long, dark, cold and wet start to the year. There's been the sweet smell of cut grass in the air around parks and gardens. Sunshine's kissed the soil and drawn crocuses and daffs into bloom, butterflies have decorated the air and birds have sung loudly for mates. I defy anyone not to feel inspired by nature.

London's bursting with nature and although…

Our auction of designer made nestboxes has closed.

These creations are one-off masterpieces from the UK's top fashion names. If you were one of the successful bidders, you've bagged a bargain and can relax, safe in the knowledge that you've invested in UK nature.

We're losing our wildlife and more desperately needs to be done to buffer wildlife from the threat of climate change and protect our landscapes…

 It's Saturday! 

In our #NestboxAuction Saturday Swapshop we'll give you a one of these brilliant and original nestboxes ... each one beautifully hand decorated by one of the UK's leading fashion designers ... in exchange for a big wad of cash.

OK, it's not a  swapshop. It is an auction; but the bit about the world class, big-name celeb designers is true. You can't get bigger than these names - in no particular…

Time's passing and the bids for our celebrity designer created bird boxes are still coming.

The Catwalk to Birdbox idea was sparked by the coincidental clashing of National Nestbox Week with London Fashion Week and today's featured designs are a successful marriage between the two from a trio of British Empire celebrants.

As Vogue puts it, in a write up about his latest collection, "John Rocha CBE loves frou…