Investigators have seized£20m worth of illegal ivory in south-east Asia in the past six weeks, including the third largest haul of elephant tusks on record,The Independenthas learnt.

They are some of the world's most remarkable and improbable journeys – vast odysseys across desert, mountain and sea by creatures often no bigger than a Mars bar. But the annual flights of Europe's migratory birds to and from sub-Saharan Africa are set to get even longer.

This tiny, spectacularly pretty butterfly, its bright orange forewings flecked with brown spots, is declining steadily, very probably because of habitat loss.

This is the blue butterfly you are most likely to see in your garden, where – as if it were a Christmas insect – it feeds on the holly and the ivy; the caterpillars of the spring generation feeding on holly flower heads and those of the autumn generation feeding on ivy flowers.

Chocolate-brown with creamy wing patches, the increasingly familiar speckledwood is well named, for it is typically a butterfly of dappled woodland shade.