The Guardian

• Conservation ‘gateway drug’: farmers embrace ancient craft of hedge laying

  Grant applications in England surge as interest grows in habitat that captures carbon and helps reduce flood risk

  The ancient craft of hedge laying is experiencing a strong revival as farmers use techniques that peaked in the 18th and 19th centuries to boost wildlife, capture carbon and help tackle flooding.

  Hedge laying, which restores and revives mature hedges to keep them fresh, was among the four most popular categories of capital grants selected by farmers out of a total pot of £225m provided by the government this year to support practical environmental improvements on farms and across the countryside.

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• Why unwanted fridges are piling up at recycling centres across England and Wales

  Capacity has been overwhelmed by heatwaves that have pushed white goods to breaking point

  “In Oxfordshire, recycling centres are filling almost three articulated lorries with discarded fridges every week,” says Simon Perry of W&S Waste Management, which runs a recycling centre in Ardley.

  Together, those fridges would cover an area just under half the size of a football pitch. But the space to store them – in Oxfordshire and beyond – has become a growing problem after the Local Government Association (LGA) warned that a mountain of broken fridges was rising in waste centres across England and Wales, as this year’s heatwaves push more white goods to breaking point, and a trend for second/backup refrigeration products keeps growing.

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• They’re the sopranos of the forest, so what’s silencing the gibbons’ morning chorus?

  As human development and roads increasingly fragment their habitats, a study suggests traffic noise could be altering the animals’ wake-up call

  Dawn has broken, and the air is cool and still. It’s at about this time that gibbons usually erupt into song, wa-oo-ing and wa-ing from the highest branches and filling the tree tops with rich melodies. But in this corner of Malaysian forest, bordered by housing and roads, the resident white-handed gibbons are quiet. All that can be heard is the hum of traffic from a nearby highway.

  This isn’t a rare occurrence for this group of gibbons, according to research, which found these particular gibbons, named Mambang and Walinong, appeared to be producing far fewer morning songs than others that are not exposed to the same level of traffic noise.

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• Country diary: Goldfinches and grasses, together in an explosion of movement | Mark Cocker

  Priestcliffe Lees, Derbyshire: What a sight – and sound – it was, this huge flock of juveniles, feeding as the wind thrashed the vegetation

  Stands of tufted hair-grass, some over a metre tall, burned beige by the summer heat, were churned by strong autumn westerlies. Over and through the vegetation’s swaying lather roved a flock of about 200 goldfinches, most of them this year’s young. They were intent on the hanks of thistle and knapweed seed which lay below the hair-grass “canopy”.

  These immature finches lack any of the red and black bands of the adult’s head. Instead of the smooth mocha buff on their parents’ underparts, the youngsters were dull and streaky. What they had to perfection were the semi-circular disks of yellow across each black wing, while every feather through that full fan was tipped with white.

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• Benedict Cumberbatch on his Earth-saving eco film: ‘We are in the last grab of the extraction era’

  From Obama’s chef to a big cat obsessive, the actor has gathered experts from Alaska, the Amazon and beyond for a film about how to heal our besieged planet. He talks about naysayers, elephant tusks – and the wonders of venison

  Benedict Cumberbatch is dreading stepping outside. He’s speaking to me from his air-conditioned hotel room in Soho at the peak of the summer heat. Few doubt that climate breakdown was a major cause of those scorchers, with nature, farming and water supplies all placed under huge strain. By midsummer, according to a report co-authored by the Met Office, there were 2,700 excess deaths in England and Wales due to the searing heat.

  But for Cumberbatch, in a bittersweet way, the record-breaking temperatures have come at a good time. The actor has been on a tour to promote his new documentary, How to Live on Earth. “The irony is not lost on anyone,” he says. “We’re living in the results of climate breakdown so stepping outside is – literally – a call to action.”

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