Signs of Spring

It is finally starting to feel more like Spring although we've still had lots of grey, drizzly days this week.

With the sun out one day I was keeping a close eye on a verge looking for insects when I managed to spot this well-concealed slow worm.

Slow worms, like other reptiles, hibernate over the winter(1) so this was probably one of the first times it had emerged this year. The thing I found most surprising was the location. It is no doubt on the verge because it faces the sun but seeing it next to a footpath not far at all from the centre of town was totally unexpected. 

More plants are coming into flower now that the temperatures have risen. One that I've seen a lot lately is pussy willow. 

Willow trees are single-sexed and these flowers only appear on the male trees(2). Both sexes produce nectar but these male flowers are important to insects due to the copious amounts of pollen they produce- the yellow blobs are the pollen. 

In several local woodlands I've seen carpets of wood anemones appear. 

Given the way they cover woodland floors you would be forgiven for thinking that they spread very quickly. However, wood anemones only spread at a rate of six feet every hundred years so are a good indicator of ancient woodland(3). Hoverflies like wood anemones are an important pollinator for the species but it's not much used to most animals as food because of an acrid taste. 

Today I was pleased to see the first bluebell of the year near the fishing lake, one solitary plant in flower. 

I went out into the New Forest this week which always leads to some lovely views. 

Whilst in the forest I heard several cuckoos calling which meant they have arrived back for the breeding season from their wintering grounds in Africa. Over the last few months I've been following the BTO's tagged cuckoos, particularly Selborne who was tagged in and returns to the New Forest(4). It's staggering to see how he has flown across much of Africa, including the Sahara desert, before crossing the sea to eventually arrive back at the New Forest. 

Meanwhile, I've spotted lots of Spring behaviour in the birds in our garden. Starlings and other birds have been ripping at the woody plant growing on the garage which backs onto our garden and flying off with whatever they can get hold of. 

The starlings nest in the cavities of the houses on our estate as they are easily accessible. You can see them disappear into the holes. Often we have some nesting in our roof and you can hear the chicks calling when the feeds begin early in the morning. 

Meanwhile it's been open warfare for the blackbirds recently. 

We seem to have two male blackbirds visiting the garden at the moment but it's not really big enough for the both of them. When they spot each other they lunge towards each other until one back off. They never seem to go far though and retreat to the safety of the shed or a fence before trying to sneak back into the feeding area. Inevitably they are spotted by their rival and the fight continues once more. 

To finish today here is a lovely piece from Ringwood TV about the Poulner Toad Patrol who help amphibians crossing the road to get to their breeding area. 

1: Froglife: Slow Worm

2: Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve: Yellow Days

3: Plantlife: Wood anemone

4: BTO: Selborne

Super Shovelers

It's been a fairly mild week which means our winter visitors are likely happy with their choice to spend the season in the UK. This week I paid a visit to Blashford Lakes which is probably at its busiest time of the year in terms of bird life.

I was lucky to get very close to one of the trees cormorants like to perch in and this resulted in a photo I'm really pleased with.

The UK has an internationally important wintering population of these birds, some 41,000 birds1.Unlike other birds they are not too particular about their habitat and will happily go to freshwater lakes like at Blashford, estuaries or the coast- anywhere with a good supply of fish is OK with them. 

I also saw a few of what is becoming my favorite waterfowl, shovelers. 

These birds are so odd-looking. Females look much like female mallard only with an enormous bill whereas males have a beautiful green head. They use their remarkable bill to forage for aquatic invertebrates2. The bill has 'lamellae' on the edge which are comb-like structures that act as sieves- this allows the birds to skim invertebrates from the water's surface. This adaptation means they don't have to compete with food resources with other ducks. 

Again the UK is an important place for these birds as 20% of North West Europe's population call it home3. 

Another spot was this lovely little grebe. 

Little Grebes are superb swimmers and pursue fish and invertebrates underwater up to a depth of one metre4. They are buoyant due to not having a tail and reappear from dives like a cork. Like other grebes though they are not good at walking and nest right at the water's edge for this reason. 

It's not all waterfowl at Blashford of course- I also spotted this green woodpecker. 

This bird was almost certainly feeding on ants here, which take up the vast majority of their diet5. It probes it's long beak into the ground and licks up ants and their larvae. Their tongues are long, about 10cm- so long in fact that they have to wrap around the skull in order to fit in the head6!

Moving elsewhere, I spotted a pair of goosander when I was walking past the River Avon this week. 

These birds use their long serrated bills to catch fish- they especially like trout and salmon7. They also have been known to eat virtually any other aquatic creatures they can find from molluscs, crustaceans, insect larvae and amphibians to small mammals and birds on occasion8. 

When walking in the New Forest this week, I came across a sizeable herd of fallow deer which included one white individual. 

Normally fallow deer are light brown and spotty but they coat does darken in the winter. Even so, you would normally expect to see pale spots on these deer but this does vary between populations. It's only the distinctive tails that tell me these are definitely fallow deer. 

You might imagine the white deer to be an albino but actually white is fairly common in deer as it's simply natural variation9. I suppose it's similar to humans having ginger hair in that it's a less common variation but a still a relatively high proportion of individuals have it.

That's all for today but I hope you have a good Christmas and I'll be back next week with my end of year round-up.

1: RSPB- Cormorant

2: Ducks Unlimited: Northern Shoveler

3: RSPB- Shoveler

4: BirdsUc: Little Grebe
5: RSPB: Green Woodpecker
6: Robinson, R.A. "Green Woodpecker" BirdFacts. BTO
7: RSPB: Goosander
8: del Hoyo, J. Elliott, A, Sargatal, J (eds) (1992) Handbook of the Birds of the World Vol 1. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. pp. 626
9: BDS: Fallow Deer

Lively Longham

Earlier this week I visited Longham Lakes, the former gravel pits which are now reservoirs. (I wrote about my first visit to the site in December here.).  I was pleased to see there were plenty of young birds on the lakes including these strange looking chicks:

These odd looking birds are actually coot chicks. 

It's a hard life being a coot chick. Coots tend to have around nine hatchlings but most die within the first 10 days of hatching- and not usually through predation. Coots feed their young on tiny insects and shrimps which means an awful lot of effort to keep a large number of hatchlings happy. After about three days they start attacking the young that beg for food, usually going for the weaker ones. This either kills the chicks or eventually the chicks give up begging and starve to death. Most coots only raise two or three out of nine hatchlings. That's what you call a tough childhood. 

I also saw several groups of tufted duck ducklings. One had three young but there was also a large family with a ridiculous seventeen ducklings! 

Now I'd like to be able to tell you that these ducklings have a better chance than the coot young but that just wouldn't be right. The reasons these birds have so many young is because so many are predated on. Herons, foxes, birds of prey and fish will all happily take small ducklings. I suspect that the chance of all 17 of this making adulthood is very slim indeed.

I also got a couple of good shots of great crested grebes on the lakes too. 

I was lucky to visit Longham during the only period of sunshine we've really had this week, which meant it was ideal weather for seeing insects. 

Longham Lakes has become something of a dragonfly haven this year with several more unusual species being seen as well as the very unusual in the UK scarlet darter. I did spot several dragonflies during my visit but the only one I got a clear shot of was this black-tailed skimmer.

I was pleased to see how well the site is being managed for insects with beds of wildflowers most of the way around the lakes. This combined with the weather meant I saw twelve different species within the hour or so I was on the site. Most were species I see regularly such as large whites, red admirals, peacocks and common blues.

I did see several species that I haven't seen yet this year though. One was a clouded yellow but that species is such a fast flyer it's extremely tricky to get a photo of. The other I did get a really clear shot of, a painted lady. 

This is a migratory species that comes to the UK from North Africa- it can't cope with UK winters. It's one of the world's most widespread species being present on every continent except South America and Antarctica. It's also the only species of butterfly ever recorded in Iceland, which shows you just how far this species is able to migrate. 

I added another species of butterfly to my 2017 list the following day when in the New Forest with this small copper. 

This species lives in discrete colonies across the UK and there are usually 3 or 4 generations a year- this is likely a second generation adult. 

Not far from this spot I spotted a rosy footman moth. 

This is a nocturnal moth though it can be seen in the day on it's favoured woodland hedgerows. They are unique in that they are the only moth with a vivid pink colouring (on the edge of their wings).

Finally, one more butterfly today. It's a very common brimstone but I think this is probably the best photo of a butterfly I've ever taken. 

That's all for today but I'll hopefully be back here with a new post on Wednesday! See you then.

Midsummer Wildlife

I'll begin today with a pretty poor photo. This bird simply wouldn't keep still for long enough for me to get a clear shot of it. 

I'm sharing this with though because it's quite an exciting bird: a spotted flycatcher. These birds are summer visitors to the UK and are in decline. Fortunately for me the New Forest is one of the best places to see these birds. They are fairly drab looking but it's their fly-catching which is great to watch. They fly from a high perch, dash out to catch a fly and then return to the same spot. That's exactly what this individual was doing at this moment. 

On the same New Forest visit I was delighted to stumble across this enormous fungus.

It's by far the largest fungus I've ever seen and is a puffball, probably even a mosaic puffball. It's a magnificent specimen. 

Via the Brownsea Island Lagoon webcam, I was able to observe an even more unusual bird this week, an elegant tern. 

This species breeds on the the Pacific coast on America yet occasionally terns up (pun intended) here in the UK. This one was around the lagoon all day and eventually roosted there. I think terns are magnificent birds anyway but this species with it's incredible spiky crown is really something. Thanks to the webcam I could watch it from the comfort of the sofa too!

Over the last few weeks I've seen a lot of house sparrows fledglings in the garden, always squawking and flapping their wings for food. Usually the parents are quick to oblige.

I've noticed that there have been egyptian geese on the fishing lake regularly over the last week or so, likely taking shelter from the high temperatures. 

As the name suggests, these species are not native to the UK. They were introduced as ornamental birds but as often happens some escaped and are now living wild. The main population in the UK is in Norfolk but we have a growing population here in Ringwood thanks to the various former gravel pits which are now lakes. 

One final bird today is the Avon grey heron which I have often shared here. This though is perhaps the best photo of it yet. 

There's still been plenty of interesting invertebrates around. Here's a particularly fine example of a dock bug and below that a relative, forest bug. 

I got some great views of some of my local butterflies yesterday, like meadow browns and commas. 

I was really excited to stumble across a less familiar species too, a large skipper. 

This butterfly likes long grass so it made sense to find it on my favourite insect path. The path is narrow at the best of times and not used very much but in summer it becomes really overgrown and the insects take over. Every time I venture down it I come across something new. 

Speaking of which, I also spotted an unusual moth species along the path yesterday, white speck. 

Also a grass feeder, this moth is more commonly found in Southern Europe but it's a migrant and has likely flown North to the UK thanks to the recent warm weather. 

I've shown you a few cinnabar moths over recent weeks so I knew it was only a matter of time before I found some of the species' distinctive caterpillars. 

These caterpillars hatch in huge numbers on ragwort plants. Ragwort is poisonous and is often removed from fields so that horses don't eat it. It's vitally important to cinnabars though and actually the caterpillars can be used to control the plant. The caterpillars end up becoming poisonous thanks to eating the plant but some species do predate them like some ants and cuckoos. 

Speaking of cuckoos, I regularly look at the BTO's Cuckoo tracking scheme. The organisation has tagged and is tracking cuckoos as they migrate to and from Africa. Of particular interest to me is Selborne, a cuckoo who was tagged in and returns to the New Forest. He arrived back in the New Forest on Easter Sunday and spent less than two months here- he's now heading back South and is near Bilbao! 

One final invertebrate to end, and it's the wonderfully named swollen-thighed beetle on a field scabious flower. 

That's it for now so I shall see you in July!

An Invertebrate Interlude

It's the best time of the year for seeing invertebrates and I've certainly been seeing a lot lately. When you start to look closely at nettles and flowers like cow parsley you start to find yourself in a magical miniature world. I'm declaring today's blog post an invertebrate special.

Let's start with the lepidoptera- the butterflies and moths. I've several of these lovely bright cinnabar moths lately.

Yesterday I was stunned to see a huge elephant hawk moth flutter past but sadly I wasn't able to get a photo of the magnificent animals. Another magnificent moth was this considerably smaller one, a common tubic. 

Most moths are considerably more understated than those, like this nettle-tap moth. 

These small moths get their name from their fondness for nettles and I saw lots of these around a large stretch of nettles recently. Another under-stated moth is this brown silver-line. 

This species likes bracken and you can probably just about make out that there is a piece of bracken right in front of it. I saw this moth up in the New Forest but a more spectacular Forest sighting was this silver studded blue. 

This is yet another species that is in decline in the UK as it's habitat is heathland. I'm always grateful that I can easily visit the New Forest and the heathlands in Dorset as otherwise I wouldn't have a chance to see species like this.

Moving on, take a look at this flower I took a photo of. 

In a quick glance this looks simply like a honey bee on a flower. But look more closely and you can see that this honey bee has fallen victim to a waiting crab spider (Misumena vatia). These spider lay in wait for prey and can capture surprisingly large items. What's really cool about these spiders though is that they can change colour by secreting a pigment into the outer cell layer of their bodies. In the US they generally live on goldenrod flowers and are bright yellow! 

Here's a sizeable insect, an ichneumon wasp (Achaius oratorius). 

These are one of those species of wasps with an unpleasant life cycle. The female finds a host insect to lay an egg on or inside. When they hatch the larval ichneumon feeds on the host, killing it when it is ready to pupate. That's nature for you!

Here's a rather impressive fly, an Empis livida dance fly. 

These flies can be found in hedgerows and are nectar feeders, hence the long proboscis. That suggests they are probably pollinators so as unattractive as species like this are they are still really important. 

Finally, here's a damselfly which I don't think I've featured on this blog before, a large red damselfly. 

These bright damselflies are the first damsels to emerge in the UK and are found around still and slow moving water sources. There is actually another species, the small red, which is very similar but that is rarer, though the New Forest is something of a stronghold. 

Well that's all for today but I hoped you liked this trip into the world of invertebrates. If you are walking near a hedgerow at this time of year look closely at the leaves and flowers and you never quite know what strange things you will find!