Summer Wildlife

The continuing heatwave has meant seeing much wildlife has been tricky. It's been too hot to spend much time out in the countryside, for both me and the local wildlife. It's been so hot a local farm made the national press after having the earliest harvest for forty years!1

It's therefore been a case of finding wildlife in more unusual locations. For example, I was wandering home through the centre of Ringwood one evening when I stumbled upon a group of black-headed gulls looking for food. Then I noticed that one of the gulls had a much darker head than the others.

Apologies for the low-quality phone shot!

This is a mediterranean gull. As the name suggests, this species used to be restricted to the black sea and the eastern mediterranean but has expanded it's territory to cover much of Europe. There are somewhere between 550 and 600 breeding pairs in the UK with regular individuals being found amongst groups of black-headed gulls like this one. 

I popped out to the garden on one hot evening and heard something moving in the leaf litter. I had a look and was surprised to find a common toad there. 

I initially thought it odd to see an amphibian in the garden at this time of year- I was concerned that it was too hot. Toads though are actually more tolerant of dry environments than frogs and often use gardens as their habitat in summer2. They usually stay in a hollow in the ground during the day and emerge after dark to feed on ants, slugs and worms.

One morning I headed to the bathroom and was surprised to find a stunning moth sat just above the bathroom mirror. 

This is a black arches moth. It's usually a woodland species so it's somewhat surprising to find it in a suburban environment but maybe there are enough trees nearby to support it. This species is considered a pest in forests as they feed voraciously on spruce and pine needles. A single caterpillar can eat 200 pine or 1000 spruce needles and about twice as many are damaged from being bitten off. If there are enough caterpillars or other factors in play they can causes the death of trees. 

I found this impressive moth early one evening on a fence on my street. 

This is a willow beauty but despite the name this species have a number of food plants including clematis, ivy and hawthorn- exactly the sort of plants you find in suburban gardens. They rest on the day on tree trunks though to a moth a wooden fence looks the same. 

I've been out on a few evenings in the garden trying to look for moths and whilst here have been plenty around, photographing them has proved very tricky. One species I did capture was this one. 

This is a rosy footman moth. These moths are a pink colour, which is unusual for moths, and are only found in the south of the UK- they are most common nearest the south coast. 

At the start of June I was surprised when one of the BTO's tagged cuckoos, Bowie, visited my patch. Well Bowie has now crossed the Sahara having travelled an incredible 3,040 miles since leaving the New Forest on 12th June- an average of 86 miles a day3! Cuckoos are truly incredible birds. 

Finally, I have been asking for people to share their local wildlife sightings and have received some interesting things so far. I was delighted to discover that there appears to be a strong community of hedgehogs in the centre of Ringwood with several people putting out for them. 

Picture from Hedgehogs of Ringwood FB Group

Hedgehogs have seen their populations decline 66% in the last twenty years. The centre of Ringwood is a great habitat for them as there are few cars after dark and a network of alleyways which allow them to travel between gardens. Fantastic residents providing food for them is an added bonus and with numbers like this in just one garden it's clear hedgehogs are doing well here in Ringwood.

That's all for today but with some time off for the summer coming up I expect to have lots more to share with you over the coming weeks.

1: MailOnline: "Britain's earliest harvest for 40 YEARS
2: Herpetofauna: Common Toad
3: BTO: Bowie

Magnificent Moths

It's been a hot week here with temperatures hovering around 30 degrees C. For wildlife that has already had to endure a freezing winter this year it's a challenging time.

The local house martins have finally settled on their nests. They appear to be breeding very late this year but in large numbers- with the good weather set to continue it will hopefully be a good year for them.

House martins are such incredible fliers and it's so wonderful to watch them swooping around catching insects. They seem to enter their nests at incredible speeds too. It's not all plain-sailing for them though- when I was looking at the various nests under the eaves of houses I spotted a very odd looking house martin. 

This is actually a house sparrow so what is it doing in a martin nest? House sparrows will happily take over house martin nests(1). They will even sometimes attack the eggs and young house martins and harass the adults. The sparrows will even do this and choose not to use the nest themselves!

I was excited to spot this female stag beetle recently on the edge of a footpath. 

It's likely this individual was looking for somewhere to lay its eggs as that's why you usually see female stag beetles on the ground(2). Stag beetles spend much of their life underground, only emerging to breed in the summer. The adults will die off by the autumn.

The warm weather has seen lots of butterflies on the wing over the last few weeks. One of the most common species locally appears to be the meadow brown. 

The other species I've seen in large numbers is the large white. 

Both species appear to be doing well in the local area though I must say there appears to be less butterflies generally than in past years. 

The highlight of my week though has been spotting moths and I've seen some fantastic species.

Some are fairly plain looking but lovely in their own way. 

This species is riband wave, a species which is attracted to light. I found it on the edge of the window- I'd kept the light on in the hope of attracting some moths which clearly worked. There are several forms of this moth, part of it's natural variation, and this is the remutata form.

This is a similar species which I think is small fan-footed wave although there are quite a few 'wave' species which look alike. 

The next species is more impressive- a ghost moth which I found on a gate post whilst it was still light. 

Once they become adult moths, this species has no functioning mouthparts and therefore cannot feed(3). The males perform a swaying flight display at dusk which is presumably where the name comes from- I imagine it would be quite spooky. 

Another stunning moth I found was this white ermine moth. 

I found this individual on our shed after dusk which made it quite the challenge to take this photo. The pattern of the black spot varies greatly between individuals and this appears to have relatively few spots.

A find yesterday morning on a garden fence was this species:

This was a tricky species to identify but I think it's a sycamore moth. To a moth, wooden fence panels look like nooks and crannies in trees where they would normally rest up so in a suburban environment fences are actually a really good place to look for moths. 

As much as I'd love to have a moth trap, a torch and a keen eye is the next best thing! 

1: RSPB: Could our house sparrows be bullying house martins?

2: PTES: About stag beetles
3: Butterfly Conservation: Ghost Moth
4: Butterfly Conservation: White Ermine Moth