(Photo above of a satin bowerbird)

A round-up of environmental news that’s been overlooked recently.

By Colin Serjent

Sweet sounds of endangered birds

An album of rarely heard squawks, chirrups and tweets by endangered birds has been released. ‘Songs of Disappearance’ was created from recordings collected over a decade by wildlife sound expert David Stewart, who spent hours hiding in dense undergrowth in remote parts of Australia to capture the secret calls. Birdlife Australia said the album contains the songs of 53 endangered species, from cockatoos and bowerbirds to one of the last remaining night parrots.

​Male bat the UK’s rarest mammal

A bat believed to be the last of its kind in the UK has been spotted years after it was last sighted. The greater mouse-eared bat had been officially declared extinct in the UK in 1990. However, the Sussex Bat Group came across it at the end of 2021. “This is the rarest mammal in the UK,” stated the Bat Conservation Trust

Mechanical trees suck carbon faster than real ones

Mechanical trees, which suck CO2 out of the atmosphere 1000 times faster than real ones, could be as common as cars within two decades, their developer has said. The mechanical tree is a ‘concertina’ column that is ten metres tall when fully extended. The column contains 150 horizontal, circular discs coated with chemicals which catch CO2 when the wind blows through them.

First-time mother of 16

A guide dog has given birth to 16 puppies, the biggest litter in sight-loss charity Guide Dogs’ 60-year breeding programme. Unity, a three-year-old German shepherd, gave birth to the puppies in November. Despite it being her first pregnancy, Unity’s litter is more than twice the size of the average for German Shepherds and more than three times the size of the average litter across all breeds.

Baby cow born with three eyes and two noses

A baby cow born with three eyes and two noses is being worshipped as a deity by villagers in Chhattisgarh, central India. Despite the deformity – apparently caused by a hormonal disorder – the calf has been deemed fit and healthy.

DR Congo park celebrate’s birth of rare gorilla

An eastern lowland gorilla has been born in a wildlife park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, raising the number of the critically endangered species to seven. The number of eastern lowland gorillas has plummeted in the past two decades, from an estimated 17,000 to fewer than 6,000, and continues to decline by around 5% per year.

Rare white-tailed eagle spotted on Cornish moor

A rare eagle species, which disappeared from the UK in the early 20th century, has been spotted in Cornwall. The white-tailed eagle is one of the UK’s largest and rarest birds of prey and they are known as ‘flying barn doors’ because of their huge wingspan.