Standing on the sea wall in Lymington in Hampshire, I watched a large white bird fly low overhead. Its head looked too long, like a child’s drawing of a bird, with a spatula where the bill should be. “Spoonbill!” I shouted, pointing. Generally, pointing and shouting are frowned upon when wildlife watching, but I was excited for good reason. Spoonbills have been absent from the UK for around 360 years and are now staging a comeback. And they’re not the only ones.
Bison graze in Kent, beavers paddle in London, and cranes fish in Somerset. This is not the UK in 1600, before habitat destruction and hunting drove many species to extinction; this is 2026, and conservationists are starting to turn the tide.
