Red squirrel colony discovered in North Yorkshire

source, Julie Bailey/UKSA
Julia Bryson           BBC News, Yorkshire          21 January 2025, 07:12 GMT

A rare colony of red squirrels has been discovered on a tree plantation in the Yorkshire Dales.

The endangered species was identified by Julie Bailey from the UK Squirrel Accord (UKSA), a partnership of forestry and conservation organisations.

Ms Bailey said she initially found four red squirrels in the North Yorkshire sitka spruce plantation after using thermal imaging cameras to survey the land.

Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw many years ago in the States ...

Storm Éowyn has been named by the Met Office and will bring severe gales to parts of the United Kingdom on Friday.

The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for wind on Friday and Saturday.  Gusts of up to 90mph (145km/h) - or possibly even more - could bring localised damage, power cuts and travel disruption. Heavy rain and hill snow are also expected.  It will mark a big change from the quiet and rather cold weather that has dominated over the last week or so.



Storm Éowyn – pronounced "ay-oh-win" – will undergo rapid development during Thursday as it moves across the Atlantic

While some of the details may still change, depending on the exact track Éowyn takes in the UK, the strongest winds on Friday are likely across parts of Northern Ireland, southern Scotland, northern and western areas of England and Wales.

The Met Office warns of gusts between 80-90mph (129-145km/h) around hills coastal areas of the Irish Sea.  But widely gusts of 60-70mph (97-113km/h) are expected through the day.  Elsewhere, across northern and western Scotland, parts of the Midlands and southern England, gusts of 50-65mph (80-105km/h) are expected but around coastal areas up to 80mph (129km/h).  Met Office yellow warnings are likely to be adjusted and possibly upgraded ahead of Friday.

These gales and severe gales are likely to bring travel disruption and some damage, which could include roof tiles being blown off and power cuts.  Large waves are also expected with coastal overtopping.  Outbreaks of rain are also expected and while it will turn milder for some - especially in the south - it will remain cold enough for snow to fall over hills in Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland.

In many bus company conditions of travel it states you should be at the bus stop 5 minutes before the advertised time.

What do you consider is responsible for the threatening atmosphere? You mention "undesirables", but what attracts these people to this one, small, area of Weymouth?

Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw many years ago in the States:  "Preserve wildlife - pickle a squirrel".  Colour was not defined.

In terms of the Pewsey situation, I suspect that was simply human error on the Train Manager not checking the departure time before closing the doors. The train was 3 mins late leaving Frome, so it would have been easy to have incorrectly assumed the train was still late at Pewsey.

I particularly like the random lineside stop to pick up children for their journey to school, with Mum equipped with a ladder!

Yes, Minister character is government's new AI assistant


Sir Humphrey Appleby was played by Sir Nigel Hawthorne in Yes, Minister

Government workers will soon be given access to a set of tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI), named after a scheming parliamentary official from the classic sitcom Yes, Minister.

The government says the assistants - called Humphrey - will "speed up the work of civil servants" and save money by replacing cash that would have been spent on consultants.

But the decision to name the AI after Sir Humphrey Appleby, a character described as "devious and controlling", has raised eyebrows.

Tim Flagg, chief operating officer of trade body UKAI, said the name risks "undermining" the government's mission to embrace the tech.

Science and technology secretary Peter Kyle will announce more digital tools later on Tuesday, including two apps which will store government documents, including digital driving licenses.

The announcement is part of the government's overhaul of digital services and comes after their AI Opportunities Action Plan announced last week.

"Humphrey for me is a name which is very associated with the Machiavellian character from Yes, Minister," says Mr Flagg from UKAI, which represents the AI sector. "That immediately makes people who aren't in that central Whitehall office think that this is something which is not going to be empowering and not going to be helping them."

Most of the tools in the Humphrey suite are generative AI models - in this case, technology which takes large amounts of information and summarises it in a more digestible format - to be used by the civil service.

Among them is Consult, which summarises people's responses to public calls for information.  The government says this is currently done by expensive external consultants who bill the taxpayer "around £100,000 every time."

Parlex, which the government says helps policymakers search through previous parliamentary debates on a certain topic, is described by The Times, as "designed to avoid catastrophic political rows by predicting how MPs will respond".

Other changes announced include more efficient data sharing between departments.

"I think the government is doing the right thing," says Mr Flagg. "They do have some good developers - I have every confidence they are going to be creating a great product."

"John Adams? Good luck!"

That's the line spoken by King George in the record-breaking musical Hamilton after Adams becomes the second US president in 1797, beating his eventual successor Thomas Jefferson.  His place in American history is an important one, as one of the Founding Fathers, the first White House resident, an early campaigner against slavery and the first vice-president.  But did you know he has a direct link to a small village in Somerset?



Barton St David is about five miles south of Glastonbury and 12 miles north of Yeovil.  It has a population of about 600 people and a church which dates back to the 12th Century.  And it was here, in 1583, where Henry Adams was born - the great, great, great grandfather of John Adams, and the great, great, great, great grandfather of John Quincy Adams - the sixth president of the US.

"Henry Adams was born in Barton St David, although there is a bit of a dispute about where he basically was," said Rob Butt, a member of the village's history club. "He was a tenant farmer and farmed lands both here and in Charlton Mackrell. There would have been more important people than him in Barton."

Mr Butt told BBC Radio Somerset how an early historical record showed Adams was once taken to court by a landowner for failure to pay a debt of animals upon his father's death in Barton St David.

He later emigrated to the US, along with other puritan pilgrims, perhaps as a result of the catholic practices being reintroduced by King Charles I, Mr Butt said.  Adams settled in Braintree, Massachusetts, which was named after the town in Essex where he had also lived during his time in England.

Mr Butt said: "There is a plaque [in the church], and the most interesting thing is that we get various requests from America for people who are related to the Adams family.  We've got the visitor book with various people with the surname Adams which have signed in... to come and look at the plaque which celebrates these two men."


Presidents Calvin Coolidge, William Howard Taft and Millard Filmore all had links to Somerset

But the links to Barton St David do not stop with John Adams and John Quincy Adams. "Henry Adams married someone called Edith Squire," Mr Butt explained, adding: "She was the daughter of Henry Squire, who was the son of a reverend, William Squire of Charlton Mackrell.  Edith and Henry Adams... through another son of theirs, after 12 generations, we get Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States."

Edith Adams' sister, Anne Squire, married Aquilla Purchase, with a lineage that leads to Millard Fillmore, the 13th president.  Another sister, Margaret Squire, married a man called John Shephard, and their family tree guides to William Howard Taft - the 27th president.  It means this small corner of Somerset can claim to have the second, sixth, 13th, 27th and 30th presidents of the US traced back to it - and its nearby reverend.

An update, from the BBC:

City bridge closed as final repairs get under way



Final adjustments will be carried out on a city centre bridge, following a recent £3m refurbishment.

Redcliffe Bascule Bridge in Bristol will be closed during those final repairs, between 09:30 GMT and 15:30 from 20-31 January.

Road users will need to follow the temporary diversion route across Bristol Bridge, while pedestrians and cyclists can use either Bristol Bridge or Prince Street Bridge.

Once this work has been finished, harbour staff will be trained on how to operate the bridge with its revised lifting system that allow larger boats to enter the Welsh Back area of the harbour.

Redcliffe Bascule Bridge was built in 1942 to link Queen's Square to the city centre.  It is made up of two fixed spans and a lifting "bascule" span, which allows larger boats to enter Welsh Back, a wharf alongside the Floating Harbour.

Bristol City Council carried out the refurbishment of the bridge from 2022 to 2023, upgrading the mechanical and electrical elements of the bridge.