“He believes the ball appears magically from the bumblebee nests, then I play with him for a while, to reinforce the fact that finding nests results in great fun,” said Joe, 33.Quin likes his job. He bounds enthusiastically through the grassland until he picks up the scent, then goes into more intense sniffing mode, with his short tail wagging rapidly.When he locates the nest, he stops in an unmistakable rigid stance, looking directly at the source of the smell. (It is a curious, strong, but not unattractive honey-like smell, like Christmas cake.)Ben Darvill, co-founder of the BBCT and another bumblebee PhD student, said: “Our problem has been, when people ask us how bumblebees are doing, without knowing the numbers of nests we can’t really tell. We needed a trained badger – because they are good at finding bumblebee nests – or a trained dog.

So I called the DAC.”Quin was trained by the civilian side of the DAC, which is run by Glendale Facilities. The company charged only a small proportion of the average £7,000 fee for training a sniffer dog, according to the general manager, Bob McCullum.”Quin had a training programme of four to five weeks,” he added “He was enthusiastic, and he took to it pretty quickly.”. Britain experienced its hottest-ever July day yesterday, as much of the southern half of the country sweltered in blazing sunshine. The July record, nearly a century old, was breached at a Met Office weather recording station at Charlwood in Surrey, where just after 1.30pm the thermometer reached 36.3C, or 97.3F..

Can there really be such things as “green” days out with the children? Aren’t families in search of fun – stampeding off to Alton Towers in herds of 4×4s, their passing marked by piles of non-biodegradable-plastic drinks bottles, nappies and fast-food cartons – about as unecologically sound as it is possible to be?

Clearly, travelling with children uses energy – whether carbon-based, parental or emotional – but go by public transport or cycle, and choose the right destination, and you can feel you’re entertaining your brood without them getting the blood of Mother Earth all over their sticky little fingers. Here are a few suggestions:
Wild World To learn about wildlife, get right in the middle of things. In the Hebrides, Islay Birding will take family groups with children as young as three on a fascinating half-day exploration of the 24-mile island, looking for and learning about the huge numbers of grebes, gulls, owls, merlins, ducks and – if you’re lucky – otters that live here.Most children have a creepy fascination with sharks, so a visit to the thrillingly shark-shaped aquarium called The Deep in Hull should help interest them in the threatened fauna of the world’s oceans. The Deep’s researchers work at the cutting edge of coral conservation, but the children will be far more interested in building their own sea monsters and watching divers hand-feeding toothy nurse sharks.As for zoos, some are far more inspiring than others.