The BBC reports restoring peat moors degraded by farming may prove a relatively inexpensive way of tackling climate change, a report shows.

Wet peat bogs store carbon that’s been sucked from the air by plants, but many bogs have been drained for farming. As drained peat dries, CO2 is produced – so in that sense peat’s causing a climate problem like cars, planes and factories. But statisticians say parts of the peat problem may be relatively cheap and easy to solve. They say the benefit of blocking up drainage ditches and bringing back vegetation to the moors shows benefits way higher than the cost.

The Observer reports colourful creatures are moving north from Europe into a warming Britain, but indigenous rivals risk being lost for ever. 

Cattle egrets – birds once so exotic we rarely saw them north of the Mediterranean – are now nesting in a heronry near my home in Somerset. Flocks of them often gather in the nearby fields, feeding among Jerseys and Holsteins. They look as if they are quite at home on this side of the Channel – which nowadays they are.