Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2020 i BBC Wildlife Magazine

1 | ATLANTIC SALMON Epic struggle Surging rivers in northern Britain, Wales and Ireland, swollen with autumn rain, witness one of our greatest wildlife dramas. Rising water levels are a cue for Atlantic salmon to move upstream – traditionally between September and December – the penultimate stage in an odyssey whose climax is spawning. These fish are the handful of survivors that dodged bigger mouths and fishing fleets to grow strong in cold Arctic waters, as far north as Greenland and the Barents Sea, a fabulously rich region, which writer Charles Rangeley-Wilson has called the “Harrod’s food hall of the oceans”. After several years here, many salmon return to their natal river catchment, even the same part of it. Maybe they are guided by magnetic particles in the ‘lateral line’…

Forming either extensive swamps in lowland floodplains, or feathery fringes along the margins of rivers, ditches, lakes and reservoirs, reedbeds are highly unusual in that the habitat is almost entirely composed of one species – common reed. Looking verdant all summer, the plant’s green coloration will by now have given way to the distinctive golden-yellow hues of late autumn and winter. Reedbeds bridge that gap between land and water. The reeds themselves sprout from specialised structures called rhizomes, which run horizontally just below the ground. The visible components of this dominant and domineering grass are the densely spaced upright shoots, eventually sprouting to over 2m in height when fully grown. Able to survive, and indeed thrive, in both submerged environments and locations that flood frequently, this super species can also…

There is no denying that the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically disrupted our lives and brought about huge changes to the way we live. Of the 1,921 UK participants who took part in a BBC Wildlife Magazine questionnaire in September 2020, 58 per cent have spent more time outside in green and natural spaces since government restrictions were introduced, and 82 per cent say they will continue this behaviour. BBC Wildlife editor Paul McGuinness says: “Our study backs up what many of us suspected – that now more than ever before, it is vital for people to connect with nature, for both our physical and mental well-being. The key challenge will be how we maintain or increase this engagement.” Those who took part in the study are all members of the…

WHAT IS IT? More species of Pacific island land snails have been driven to extinction since 1600 than any other animal group. This new discovery, which sports a 5mm-long shell and comes in a variety of colour patterns, brings a sliver of hope that at least some of those believed to have been lost forever might still cling to existence. WHERE IS IT? Auricullela gagneorum is the first new species of land snail to be found for 60 years in the Hawaiian archipelago, which has lost more than half of its 750 native snail species to habitat destruction and invasive predators. FIND OUT MORE ZooKeys: bit.ly/2Rs9KnN…

1 SOCOTRAN FIG Dorstenia gigas Though in the fig family, this is not a Ficus. It has the appearance of some magical plant from an ancient herbal remedy, with its clusters of wrinkled leaves and swollen stems. It’s often seen in large numbers growing on vertical cliff-faces. 2 THE CUCUMBER TREE Dendrosicyos socotranus Large, with a massively swollen trunk, it belongs in the gourd family Cucurbitaceae, and is the only tree in a family of climbers and vines. Not found on mainland Arabia, it has likely been isolated on Socotra for the entire lifetime of the island. 3 EUPHORBIA ARBUSCULA This must be one of the most characteristic trees on Socotra. It flowers during the dry season, when it is used as fodder for goats. It is…

As I emerged from Durban’s airport, into searing heat, I realised I had made the very same journey as the birds. It’s January 2020, and the swallows are home. They arrived a while ago – at first in ones and twos, then in small flocks, and finally in their hundreds of thousands, bringing joy to people across the land. Don’t worry – I haven’t got my seasons muddled up. I’m not talking about the annual return of swallows to Britain (and the rest of the northern hemisphere) in March and April, but their arrival in September and October to a place 10,000km away: South Africa. We may think of swallows ‘flying south for winter’,  but the truth is that they actually enjoy a second spring and summer, half a world…

Leading the way Mass nesting of the Vulnerable olive ridley sea turtle had happened for the second time in a year at Rushikulya, India. One morning, I witnessed the adult females coming out from the sea as tiny newborns headed towards the water. Once they had finished laying their eggs, the females returned to the depths, along with some of the recently hatched youngsters from other nests. A rare natural history moment. Arghya Adhikary, Kolkata, India 1 Welcome return I was working as a photographer for The Crees Foundation in the Peruvian Amazon. Crees works in a regenerating rainforest which, only 30 years ago, was completely cleared for farming. Now, 87 per cent of species – such as this horned forest dragon – have returned. Eilidh Munro, Edinburgh 2 On…

Starling Smaller than a blackbird, with a distinctive pointed bill and triangular wings in flight, this gregarious bird is easily identified. Britain’s population of starlings is substantially bolstered by birds from the Continent as winter sharpens. By day, they feed in the countryside. As dusk approaches, they gather in large flocks, with reedbeds a roosting habitat of choice. Cetti’s warbler After first breeding in Kent in 1972, this secretive, chestnut-coloured warbler has now become a year-round feature of reedbeds in the southern half of England and Wales. It is far more commonly heard than seen. The male’s song, belted out from among the reeds and bushes, can (unusually for a warbler) be heard throughout winter. Water rail This attractive waterbird is smaller than the related moorhen, with streaky-brown upperparts, blue-grey…

The campaign group Extinction Rebellion (XR) has made a name for itself over the past two years through street protests and acts of civil disobedience. Most people knew it was highlighting the need for the Government to tackle climate change, but there was little sense of how it believed that should happen. But now XR campaigners have helped to draft the Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE) Bill, which would require ministers to adopt more extreme measures to combat global warming and biodiversity declines. Key objectives are to ensure the UK plays its part in limiting global temperature increases to 1.5›C and to protect and restore its ecosystems. The bill has been introduced into the House of Commons by Green MP Caroline Lucas and is supported by MPs from all major…

The news that 2020 was the best breeding year for hen harriers in England since 2002, with 60 chicks fledged from 19 successful nests (24 if you include unsuccessful ones), suggests they may be finally recovering after decades of decline. Last year saw 47 chicks fledged, and as recently as 2013, English hen harriers produced no offspring at all. Conservationists have given the news a cautious welcome. Illegal persecution on grouse moors is the biggest factor limiting their numbers in England, but there is no evidence that less persecution is helping hen harriers recover. According to Mark Avery, of the campaigning group Wild Justice, this year’s increase could just be down to it being a good vole year. “It’s a bit difficult to go from zero successful nests to 19…

On my first day in Socotra, as we walked to what became known as the infinity pool, the sheer improbability of the landscape made me stop and gaze around in wonder. We were following a stony track along a narrow bed of salmon-pink limestone, scalloped and pleated by the elements, with a fast-flowing stream to our left and thrusting peaks ahead. Squished between the rocks or clinging to the sides of them were bottle trees, everyone’s favourite living thing on the island. The common name, desert rose, does nothing to conjure their appeal or appearance. The scientific name is much more descriptive: obesum . Little dumpy things, with the smooth skin of obesity, their plumpness takes a wide variety of forms, many irresistibly reminiscent of buttocks or bellies. Some were…

LIFE IN THE BALANCE JAIME CULEBRAS, SPAIN Winner 2020, Behaviour: Amphibians and Reptiles A Manduriacu glass frog snacks on a spider in the foothills of the Ecuadorian Andes. Jaime’s determination to share his passion for these little amphibians had driven him to walk for four hours, in heavy rain, through the forest, to reach the frogs’ streams in Manduriacu Reserve. As the downpour grew heavier, forcing him to turn back, he spotted one small frog clinging to a branch, its eyes like shimmering mosaics. Not only was it eating (he had photographed glass frogs eating only once before), it was also a newly discovered species, distinguished by the yellow spots on its back and lack of webbing between its fingers. Serenaded by a frog chorus, Jaime captured the first ever…

Book choice Monty Don’s not-so-secret garden The presenter and writer shares his observations and celebrates wildlife. MY GARDEN WORLD BY MONTY DON, TWO ROADS, £20 The much-loved gardening personality and columnist for BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Monty Don has written “millions of words about gardens”. This is a gaze cast wider on the wildlife that, for Monty – a committed organic gardener – has always been there. My Garden World does not attempt to be a reference book, nor is it nature writing as such, rather it is a seasonal scrapbook of notes and personal reflection on a lifetime spent noticing nature. It mingles facts with often lyrical observations from his life, Herefordshire garden and Welsh farm, in a conversational and warm voice. Through the year, we get ducks, toothwort…

Benefits of nature Nature has a place right in the centre of my heart. It has special meaning to me because it was the only thing that got me out of bed when I was going through my second mental breakdown. I was off work for 10 months and admitted into St Ann’s hospital in Poole twice. When you’re going through a mental breakdown, there’s no ‘off switch’ – all my anxiety, paranoia and depression went constantly around in my head. However, when I am staring through my camera, concentrating on that one moment in time, all my worries fade into the background and give me some much-needed headspace. Since 2018, I’ve been telling my story to try and help others struggling with their mental health. I’ve found a new…

Cone sweet cone Plastic pollution is a real problem for marine species – reports of carrier bags being removed from the stomachs of beached whales, not to mention mircroplastics being ingested by all sorts of sea life, are far too familiar. However, this common lobster appears to have discovered a way to use our castoffs to its advantage. Concealing itself inside a discarded traffic cone, the cunning crustacean has found the perfect hideout, enabling it to survey the seabed in safety. White-out Apart from the glint of a golden eye, this snowy owl blends in beautifully with its wintery surroundings, as it takes to the air across the Canadian tundra. Far from being a night owl, these birds are diurnal and rely on their camouflage to avoid detection while hunting…

Carla Lopes of São Paulo State University and her colleagues have been scouring water bodies in Brazil’s Atlantic forests for environmental DNA (eDNA), which is shed by animals via skin cells, faeces and other secretions. Their search turned up eDNA sequences matching 3 of 27 species that have not been recorded for 10 years or more, including one, Megaelosia bocainensis, that has not been seen since 1968. This might suggest that 11 per cent of missing species still cling on in the wild, though Lopes cautions that simply detecting their presence tells us little about the viability of the populations. The team is now applying its techniques to other habitats, such as leaf litter, and other groups of animals. But they aren’t yet finished with amphibians: “There are three iconic…

THERE ARE ALMOST as many theories about the appearance of zebras as they have stripes, but research by biologists at the University of Bristol has added weight to the leading hypothesis. Their recent paper reports that zebra stripes are probably a form of disruptive coloration, just not in the way that had been suspected. Previous work by the Bristol team, using domestic horses wearing patterned rugs, showed that stripes are most likely a response to bothersome biting flies. Those studies found that the blood-sucking parasites spot stripy horses as easily as plain ones, meaning zebra stripes are not an effective anti-fly camouflage. But stripy targets do still fool the flies, since they fail to slow down or land successfully. In their new research, the scientists examined whether zebra stripes dazzle…

$168 illi Amount tourism was worth in Africa during 2019. THE VIEW FROM AFRICA From her camp in Kenya’s Westgate Conservancy, Shivani Bhalla, founder of Ewaso Lions, is describing the biblical rains that have brought the floodplains of the Ewaso Nyiro River to abundant life. “It’s pretty much rained all year,” she tells me. “I said to our team of Samburu warriors, ‘This must be enough now!’ And they replied, ‘No, you can never have enough rain. It’s what keeps us going.’” At the start of 2020, wildlife was flourishing in wet northern Kenya. Just three months later, the sinister COVID-19 pandemic forced the world to shut down. Human movement was restricted, borders and supply chains closed and quarantines enforced. When international flights were grounded, tourism across the African continent…

I really enjoyed reading the August 2020 issue, as the stories were so compelling, and even astonishing. In particular, the article on ‘Scarface’ and the Mara lions stood out to me, as lions are among my favourite animals. The article gave a very interesting overview of the dynamics within a pride, showing how the males start out as nomads then group together to form, grow and strengthen their pride, only to be overpowered by younger males who follow in their footsteps, and the cycle continues. It is quite hard, but not surprising, to read about the effects of climate change on the lions, but it was great to see Mara’s conservancies pledging to do more to create a safer environment for these animals. Reading about the changes facing the lions…

“The bouts of sparring were feisty enough to keep Sugar Ray Leonard on his toes.” Living in the city of Coventry – a place not exactly renowned for its abundance of wildlife – getting my nature fix usually involves hopping in the car and driving to reserves that have a reputation for attracting my target species of the month. With mid-March approaching, I had one thing in mind: the sprightly antics of the ‘mad’ March hare, a concept immortalised by writers such as Lewis Carroll when Alice, in Wonderland, hypothesises that the March hare won’t be “raving mad” in May, “at least not so mad as it was in March.” Alas, with the Government’s sudden announcement of a nationwide lockdown scuppering my plans to catch these elusive mammals in mating…