Another year in the Wild South

Today is the 2nd birthday of this blog, so to celebrate I’ve been back over my posts from the last year, and picked a couple of my favourites from each month. I quite enjoyed looking back – brought back lots of memories!

September 2014

Looking from St Agnes to the Gugh

• Photo Special: Isles of Scilly – I had to choose this one, really, as not only do I quite like some of these photos, but, as it happens, I’m actually in the Isles of Scilly at the moment. It’s a beautiful place with excellent wildlife watching opportunities.
• Hedgehog pawprints – I just love hedgehogs really.

October 2014

Diagram of how moles are adapted to life underground

• Scrumping badgers? – it’s so exciting seeing badgers (even if I didn’t get any photos)!
• Moles: perfectly adapted – I’ve still never seen a mole in the wild (alive, at least), but you can’t help admire how suited they are to their subterranean lifestyle.

November 2014

Nut nibbled by a dormouse. Note the smooth inner surface of the hole, and the scratches outside the hole.

• Looking for Harvest Mice at an airport – this day of surveying for harvest mice at Gatwick airport was really memorable, even if we didn’t find any in the end. It’s fascinating to see what wildlife can exist even in the most unlikely places.
• How to tell who’s been nibbling your nuts – some close-up photos of nuts nibbled by dormice and other mice, with guidance on how to distinguish between the two.

December 2014

New growth from beaver-coppiced willows on the River Otter

• Dormouse licence! – It took a long time to get enough experience with handling dormice to obtain my licence, so this was quite a significant milestone for me. This year I’ve enjoyed having my own site to survey.
• On the trail of wild beavers – I’ve really enjoyed following the story of England’s first beavers in the wild for hundreds of years, and it was amazing to see signs of them when we were visiting the River Otter.

January 2015

• Weasel words (or in praise of weasels) – I was singing the praises of weasels way before the weaselpecker photo was taken…
• Alien invaders: the Grey Squirrel – a discussion of the pros and cons of the rise of the grey squirrel in Britain

February 2015

• February photography challenge: still life – I was really pleased with some of the still life photos I took in February – it pushed me beyond my usual techniques.
• Choughed to see porpoises – another wildlife adventure where I see something different from what I was aiming for.

March 2015

What you need to set up a footprint tunnel: tunnel, tracking plate, tasty food, masking tape, vegetable oil, black poster paint powder, something to mix the paint in, A4 paper, paper clips, tent pegs, footprint guide

• Dormouse box cleaning at my new site – getting ready for the dormouse season at my new site!
• How to use a mammal footprint tunnel – A ‘how to’ guide on using a tool to find out what mammals visit your garden.

April 2015

Supporters of Christian aid agencies (and others) call for action on climate change

• British Animal Challenge: March and April 2015 – a summary of my progress on seeing every species of British Animal
• Church speaks and acts on climate change – While the new government seems to be implementing as many policies as possible to increase climate change (fracking, cutting subsidies to renewable energy, imposing the climate change levy on green electricity, the list goes on), it’s encouraging to see the church take a strong stance on this issue

May 2015

Summary of where the parties stand on some nature issues

• Election summary – I spent a couple of months during the election campaign trying to find out where the main British parties stood on various issues relating to nature, the environment and wildlife. I must say, I didn’t enjoy the process much – it was quite dispiriting. But this post summarised all that work.
• In which I learn I need a new approach to seeing bats – another batty adventure.

June 2015

Torpid dormouse found on my box check in June

• First dormouse at my new site – this was so exciting – the first dormouse I found at my new site. To add to it, I’d taken my GoPro, so was even able to get some footage!
• How to turn a pallet into a vertical flower planter – this afternoon project has really brightened up a dull bit of my garden, right outside my study. And it was surprisingly easy.

July 2015

Can you tell what it is yet?

• Too darn hot (or how to help wildlife during a heatwave) – I think the rather dull summer we’ve had might be my fault – I wrote this post during a hot period, and since then heat has not been a problem. But still, it’s good advice for if we do get another heat wave.
• My barn owl project – this is a little different from the projects I usually write about on this blog, but I’m enjoying it, and making good progress.

August 2015

How my garden birds did in 2014-15 compared to previous years

• Bird nerd part 12: 2014-15 compared to previous years – I like this post as it presents data from my garden birdwatching in a rather more visual form than usual. I’d like to do some more infographics for this blog.
• A hedgehog in the daytime – disaster or delight? – I was very excited when I learnt what a hedgehog gathering bedding during the day might mean. I haven’t seen any hoglets yet this year, but it could be any day…

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Weasel words (or in praise of weasels)

Weasels have a bad press. Their name has come to mean some sly, sneaky and treacherous. Their most prominent depiction in popular fiction is (together with stoats) as a gang of vicious, mean ruffians, taking advantage of poor Mr Toad’s foolishness to take over Toad Hall.

With their pointy teeth and carnivorous diet, they are certainly fearsome predators, but I think their reputation is rather unfair. If they were bigger, perhaps people would respect them more. The larger members of the mustelid family (badgers and otters) are (generally) regarded with affection. Compare how they’re portrayed in The Wind in the Willows with the poor stoats and weasels. Yet otters are no gentler than weasels.

While weasels are pretty common in the UK, and active both day and night, people are largely unaware of them. I remember being amazed how small they are, the first time I saw one. In fact, a sub-type of the common weasel is the smallest carnivore on earth. The type we get here in the UK measures just 18cm (females) or 22cm (males) in length, and weighs just 70g (females) or 125g (males).

Despite their diminutive size, weasels are effective hunters. Their diet is largely made up of small rodents (voles and mice), but they can also dispatch rabbits. A weasel can run carrying prey that weighs half their own body weight. Pretty impressive.

Last weekend I attended a fascinating course on smaller mustelids, run by the Wildwood Trust. Before now I’ve not spent much time thinking about small mustelids. I was amazed by how little we know about stoats and weasels, which are both pretty common and widespread. This lack of knowledge may partly be down to their poor reputation. The difficulties of surveying them doesn’t help, either.

The limited data we do have suggests that, while they are common, their numbers have been declining in recent decades. They’re not a protected species, so can be trapped and killed by gamekeepers. Secondary poisoning from eating poisoned rats is also a problem, along with predation by cats, foxes and birds of prey. They’re also vulnerable to parasites. Starvation is probably the biggest cause of death for weasels, and they are very dependent on the population of small rodents.

At least now, with the advent of cheaper DNA tests and camera traps, we may be able to find out a bit more about them. I’d certainly love to learn more, as they’re fascinating creatures.

Britain’s most elusive creatures

Several newspapers were today featuring articles based on a survey of 2000 people on what wildlife they had seen. The survey was carried out for a new David Attenborough series, called Natural Curiosities. I haven’t been able to find a full report of the survey results, so am having to go from the press coverage. The results are a mixture of surprising and expected.

The focus of a lot of the coverage has been the ‘top ten most seldom seen creatures’:

• Nightjar, seen by only 4% of respondents
• Pine marten – 5%
• Golden eagle – 9%
• Stoats and weasels – 16%
• Otters – 17%
• Cuckoo – 22%
• Slow worm – 25%
• Adder – 29%
• Raven – 30%
• Kingfisher – 34%

Some of these I’m not at all surprised by. The top three are all rare, restricted in range to only a small part of the country, and in the case of pine martens and nightjars, hard to spot.

Others are a bit more puzzling. Take stoats and weasels. (I find it quite endearing that they’ve chosen to count this as a kind of composite species, like in Wind in the Willows).  These are not rare in Britain, with several hundred thousand of each species, and they can be found all over mainland Britain. They are nocturnal, but certainly not unusual. My glimpses of them have so far been mustelid shapes darting across country lanes.

What’s also interesting is the species that aren’t in the top ten. I find it very hard to believe that more people (34% apparently) have seen dormice than slow worms or adders. The two reptile species are spread much more widely across the country than the hazel dormouse, which is now almost exclusively found in the south. Both reptiles can be (almost literally) stumbled across when walking in the countryside or pottering in the garden. Whereas dormice are nocturnal creatures who live in trees – unless you’re actively looking for them, you’re unlikely ever to see one, even if you live in a wood (unless your cat is good at jumping). I can’t help suspecting that maybe some of the people who reported having seen dormice had actually seen other rodents, and didn’t really know what a dormouse looked like.

I’m a bit surprised wildcat isn’t somewhere near the top, although perhaps they didn’t ask about that.

More generally, some of our more common species had been seen by relatively few people. Only 39% had seen badgers, for example. Perhaps we, as a nation, just don’t spend much time in places where we’re likely to see wild animals.

I’ve seen 6 of the 10 on the list. In terms of my British Animal Challenge, it confirms that pine martens and otters are going to be a challenge. Luckily I’ve seen the other animals that come in the top ten.