Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2022 i BBC Wildlife Magazine

IT MIGHT LOOK LIKE THIS MACEDONIAN crested newt is flying through space, away from a cumulous green galaxy, but it is actually gently swimming across a pond in Serres, Greece. The ‘galaxy’ is in fact a mass of filamentous algae. In spring, amphibians across the northern hemisphere will be emerging from hibernation and heading towards watery places to breed. In the UK, we have three native species of newt: the similar-looking and -sized smooth and palmate newts, both common and widespread, and the great crested newt, which is larger and widespread across much of lowland England, but restricted elsewhere. Once back in their ponds, newts perform courtship dances, where the male uses his tail to waft pheromones towards the female. If she’s interested, he will deposit his spermatophore near her…

AS MANY AS 4,000 BARNACLE GEESE that were wintering on the Solway Firth, on the border between England and Scotland, have died from an ongoing and unprecedented outbreak of avian flu. The geese, which breed in Svalbard in arctic Norway, have been seen falling from the sky in distress and staff at the RSPB’s Mersehead reserve have been removing hundreds of carcasses that have washed up on the beach. Conservationists now fear that more birds will die from the disease. “The classic avian flu pattern is for the outbreak to peak in early winter, followed by a second wave later in the season that can be more deadly,” says Martin Fowlie, senior media officer at the RSPB. The current outbreak of avian flu was first detected last autumn, and while…

AN ANATOMICAL MISCELLANY JELLYFISH, CORALS, ANEMONES, WHICH are collectively called cnidarians, perform one of the fastest moves in nature. Their potent stings are delivered by tiny barbed harpoons, each packed into a single cell full of venom. When triggered, they discharge explosively, like an inverted finger of a rubber glove popping back out under pressure, accelerating faster than a bullet in a gun barrel.…

ID GUIDE Although it doesn’t have a strong smell, the poo of tapirs is distinctive, as it’s typically full of fibres and seeds from the plants they eat. As large herbivores, the Baird’s tapir and other tapir species are important for the dispersal of large seeds and, in the process, combating climate change. “These seeds often come from slow-growing trees with dense wood; these same trees are typically the trees that are the most carbon dense,” says Christopher Jordan, director of Latin America for Re:wild.…

COURTING GREAT CRESTED GREBES WITH STRICTLY COME DANCING ALL wrapped up by Christmas, many readers may be missing their weekly dose of dancing come early spring. If, however, you find yourself unable to wait for the new series, but are prepared to exchange your sofa for a warm coat and binoculars, there is a spectacle on offer right now that may just eclipse anything provided by cavorting celebrities dressed in sequins. Great crested grebes may look drab out of the breeding season, but they more than make up for their nondescript winter plumage with the extraordinary outfit ushered in by their second partial moult. Keen to impress their dance partner, the end result is a gorgeous headset, composed of a frill or ‘tippet’ of chestnut and black-tipped feathers that surrounds…

WINSTON CHURCHILL ONCE described Uganda as “the Pearl of Africa”. His words come to mind as I take in my surroundings. I’m in the lush, green foothills of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, whose dark interior shelters the country’s most famous wild residents: mountain gorillas. My guide, Peace, is a powerhouse of enthusiasm and knowledge. “You are very lucky. Today you will meet the Rushegura group,” she exclaims. “There are two big boys: the leader, we shall call Obama. And his second-in-command, we shall call Biden.” A chuckle ripples through our group of eight tourists. The silverback’s name is actually Kabukojo, but, spurred on by our amusement, Peace continues. “Obama has been busy making babies. There are now 21 family members.” Covid-19 is a potential disaster for a gorilla population that has…

THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER IS OWNED BY THE Queen and, though it doesn’t cover an extensive area of the Forest of Bowland, there is a substantial holding at Whitewell, near Clitheroe. Bowland’s moorlands ought to be fertile territory for species, such as hen harriers and other raptors, but in recent decades they have largely failed to flourish. One of the biggest conservation issues in Bowland is grouse-shooting, which requires the cultivation of a heather monoculture at the expense of greater plant diversity. A spokesperson from the duchy told BBC Wildlife that game-shooting of grouse, partridges and pheasants only takes place on a “limited scale”, but to really live up to Prince Charles’s words, should it not commit to abandoning these pursuits entirely? That could have a domino effect, persuading other…

HUMANS HAVE BEEN FASCINATED BY BIRDS FOR millennia. Images of owls, cranes and emus adorn cave art sites believed to be up to 40,000 years old. Birds have been revered in religions and cultures throughout time and across regions, while flight itself plays an important role in myth and legend. From the Athabaskan stories that explain why only some birds migrate to the legend of Icarus who made his own wings, humans have always looked to the sky for inspiration. Yet it wasn’t until the early 1900s that we found a way to fly. And, unsurprisingly, we did it through lessons learned from our feathered friends. We adopted the lightly curved shape of a bird’s wing – an aerofoil – and designed planes around it, because it was so efficient…

LOOKING THROUGH THE WINNERS OF the Natural History Museum’s prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year (WPY) contest last year, I was struck by just how few were female. But should I really have been that surprised? There has, after all, been a long-standing asymmetry between men and women in wildlife photography. As an article on the Natural History Museum’s website states, “The number of female WPY entrants and winners is representative of the amount of women working in wildlife photography.” The reasons for this imbalance are myriad, as are the opinions on it. Some claim inherent bias. Others feel that women lack one or all of the qualities required to get ahead in this field, qualities traditionally associated with men: competitiveness, assertiveness, technical know-how, physical strength, fearlessness. And, historically at…

SAMIR KUMAR SINHA ANSWERS Animals adapt specific physical features and behaviours to deal with their enemies. Those adaptations might be as simple as hiding or fleeing, or may extend as far as camouflaging, changing colour, bluffing, using spikes and spines on their body, expelling or injecting poisonous chemicals, smelling bad or relying on a venomous bite. Displaying an exaggerated body size before enemies, as cobras do with their hoods, is another such strategy. The snake stretches its specialised rib bones and muscles in the neck region to form the hood. When frightened, a cobra will rear up off the ground and unfurl its hood, displaying a bigger size in the hope of warning off its enemy. If that warning is disregarded, it’s followed by a strike. BBC WILDLIFE EXPERTS STUART…

WITH EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGIST JV CHAMARY CHROMOSOMES ARE THE STRUCTURES in cells that carry genes – the instructions for making and maintaining life. Humans typically have 23 pairs of chromosomes, but both the number and type of chromosomes varies greatly among the organisms that make up the living world. Do all organisms have chromosomes? Yes. Simple cells such as bacteria usually have just one circular chromosome, whereas complex cells tend to contain linear structures. But being more complex or multicellular doesn’t necessarily mean more chromosomes: the male jack jumper ant has only one chromosome, for example, but the single-celled, amoeba-like organism Sterkiella has 16,000 chromosomes – almost one for each of its 18,500 genes. What are chromosomes made of? Mostly genetic material, the molecule DNA. In complex cells, DNA strands are…

What made you first get into photographing wildlife? I always wanted to be a marine biologist, but passed when I realised how much maths and science was involved. After college I temped and travelled, then eventually lied my way into my first photo-editing job on a psychology magazine. Later, after nine years at National Geographic, I finally became a full-time photographer. What’s your most meaningful shot? On return from a backpacking trip with friends, we did a slideshow. I’d taken a picture of an Akha woman in Thailand, posing with a small boy. When my friend’s mother saw it, she started crying. She connected with the moment. It was then that I realised the power of photography. You often describe wildlife as ‘badass’. What’s the most ‘badass’ species you’ve photographed…

ACROSS 6 Making a noise like a lion, perhaps (7) 7 Everglade state (7) 9 Spherical seedhead of a dandelion (5) 10 ___ von Humboldt, a German naturalist and scientist (9) 11 Long-bodied fish in the family Zoarcidae (7) 13 ___ pheasant, forest bird found in South-East Asia (6) 15 Ostrich-like bird of South-East Asia (6,7) 19 In flower (6) 20 Fly order (7) 23 Sandstone region of south-east England, noted for its forest and heathland (4,5) 24 Subclass of mites (5) 26 Hoofed ruminant, Capreolus capreolus, widespread in Europe (3,4) 27 Fish noted for its whisker-like barbels (7) DOWN 1 ___ palm, tree widely cultivated for starch. Also a popular houseplant (4) 2 Ancient genus of non-flowering seed plants, with only one living representative (6) 3 Sweetbriar rose (9) 4…

THE FIRST BUTTERFLY OF THE YEAR ALWAYS lifts the spirits – and it’s often a comma. This butterfly seems to glow orange like the embers of a bonfire, instantly lighting up any March day. On closer inspection, the upper wings are a rich mix of oranges and browns, which, complete with the insect’s ragged wing outline, brilliantly impersonate an autumn leaf. In fact, the butterfly is named for the small white mark on the underside of its hind wing, but you’ll need a clear view of a resting individual to see this well. Commas are seen so early in the year because, like brimstones, peacock butterflies and small tortoiseshells, they hibernate as adults. All it takes is a bit of March sunshine to lift the air temperature, and the hardy…

MARSH MARIGOLD IS LIKE A MASSIVE version of lesser celandine, whose cheerful, bright yellow flowers are such a harbinger of spring. Both species are in flower by March and belong to the buttercup family, but they favour different habitats. Whereas lesser celandine is found in all kinds of open woodland, often on banks or beside paths, marsh marigold likes its feet wet. It thrives everywhere from ditches and marshes to flooded woodland, and is an excellent choice for garden ponds. Frogs like to hide among its tangle of huge, glossy green leaves. It was once known as kingcup and has an unusual structure. Curiously, its half-a-dozen or so regal golden ‘petals’ are actually sepals. Ordinarily, a flower’s sepals hang low beneath the petals, which are the showiest and most…

April Windle is fascinated by the small things in the world. She considers the humble hand lens to be her most valuable piece of equipment. It is lichens in particular that have so captured her attention – and her imagination too. “They are small things in landscapes, but when you get a hand lens on top of them they don’t appear small things anymore,” she says. “When I am looking at lichens I feel that I am looking at a miniature landscape – like I am entering an entirely different world.” April’s journey to becoming a lichenologist is an interesting one as she arrived there via a youthful interest in falconry. “I have always been absolutely fascinated by birds of prey and I wanted to study zoology because I wanted…

WHAT’S IN A NAME? THE TERM ‘A PARLIAMENT OF OWLS’ comes from The Chronicles of Narnia novels, written by CS Lewis in the 1950s. It’s a reference to Chaucer’s poem The Parliament of Fowls, where the world’s birds gather to find a mate. Lewis adapts Chaucer with a council of owls who meet to discuss the affairs of Narnia. Owls are thought to be wise ever since the Ancient Greeks depicted the birds accompanying and representing Athena, the goddess of wisdom.…

1 RSPB LOCHWINNOCH Only 30 minutes from Glasgow city centre, this reserve has easily accessed hides and viewing points from which to spot grebes 2 RUTLAND WATER Managed by Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, this is the largest reservoir in England by surface area. Hides give great views across the water, making it one of England’s best grebe-spotting sites. 3 WWT LONDON WETLAND CENTRE Made from four disused Victorian reservoirs tucked into a loop of the River Thames, it may be the easiest place to see displaying grebes in Greater London. 4 TRING RESERVOIRS Composed of four reservoirs just north of Tring, this was the first place where the grebes’ courtship was described by evolutionary biologist (and eugenicist) Julian Huxley in 1914 5 RSPB VALLEY WETLANDS On the Isle of Anglesey in…

There are two species of gorilla – the eastern and the western gorilla – each of which is formed of two subspecies Western gorilla WESTERN LOWLAND GORILLA The most numerous and widespread gorillas are slightly smaller with grey-brown tinged fur CROSS RIVER GORILLA Similar in appearance to western lowland gorillas but with different sized skulls and teeth Eastern gorilla MOUNTAIN GORILLA Thicker fur than other species enables the mountain gorilla to live above 2,400m of elevation EASTERN LOWLAND GORILLA The largest and stockiest gorilla, the eastern lowland also has a shorter muzzle than its relatives…

SANDRINGHAM IS THE BIGGEST AND BEST-known lowland estate owned by the royals. It’s already largely certified organic, but as rewilded sites such as Knepp in West Sussex have shown, much more can be achieved for nature by a far more radical approach. But how? Knepp has abandoned arable agriculture, turning instead to livestock such as Tamworth pigs, longhorn cattle and Exmoor ponies. These domestic animals replicate the behaviour of wild boar, extinct aurochs (a wild bovid) and tarpan (a wild horse), setting in train dynamic processes within woodlands, grasslands and wetlands that lead to greater floral diversity, allowing invertebrates and birds to thrive as well. Hedges are left to grow out like billowing sails, and brambles and other scrubby plants to colonise anywhere they like, providing nesting areas for dunnocks…

Wendy Shatil 1990 Wendy claimed the first overall title of the 1990s with this photo of a fox cub, and received the prize from David Attenborough (right) Angie Scott 2002 A family of African elephants is distracted from enjoying a drink in a river in Zambia by a grey heron looking for fish in the same spot Julia Kemp 1984 A photograph of a goosander diving underwater to catch its prey earned Julia, and her husband Richard, 1984’s grand prize. (Unfortunately the image is unavailable for licence.) Cherry Alexander 1995 Adélie penguins gathered on the edge of a blue iceberg in Antarctica’s South Sandwich Islands won for Cherry in 1995. Capturing the shapes and shades of the ice from a moving boat was quite an achievement.…

DAVE HAMILTON ANSWERS Many of our culinary herbs, such as mint, rosemary and thyme, come from the Mediterranean region. In this dry, rocky habitat, where few other plants grow, it helps to have strong defences against any prey. Aromatic oils and bitter compounds in these herbs make the plant unpalatable to prey animals such as aphids, caterpillars and rabbits. For herbs such as rosemary, these insect-repelling oils can be at their highest concentrations when the plant is about to flower, and in other herbs it’s when they send out new shoots. The high concentrations of volatile oils may put off prey but can be appealing to us due to their unique flavours and scents. The time when the plant is at its most vulnerable is, for us humans, the best…

BOOK HIGHLIGHT OF THE MONTH A journey of loss and transformation Bird Brother RODNEY STOTTS HAS always loved and been fascinated by animals, but particularly raptors. “Ever since I was a kid, birds of prey amazed me,” he says. He would bunk off school in order to visit the zoo. “Raptors, vultures, eagles – they were so fierce with their sharp killer talons. The birds of prey were also feared and misunderstood, just like I was.” The book opens with Rodney getting distracted during a drug deal by a redtailed hawk landing near the window with its rodent prey. Whilst Rodney’s supplier weighs out the coke, Rodney is mesmerised by the bird instead. Strangely, it’s the drug dealing that prompts a career in nature. In order to own an apartment,…

HAVING SUBMITTED 3,500 RECORDS ON iNaturalistUK during the three days of the global City Nature Challenge in 2021, Amanda Cogan Barber was chosen as the runner-up in the terrestrial category of the 2021 National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Awards for Wildlife Recording. How did you get into volunteering? Wanting to find something to do that I would really enjoy and learn from, I decided to join the Grey to Green project held by Greater Manchester Local Record Centre at Manchester University. The aim of the project was to teach people how to record wildlife and to enter records. Since then, I have volunteered for a range of different projects and anytime I am free, I am recording wildlife through iNaturalistUK. What does your volunteering involve? I am currently contributing to many…

NICK BAKER The dipper gets its name by dipping on land, before dipping its entire body into water to fish P.36 GILLIAN BURKE The many signs of spring highlight the complex interplay of biological and astronomical systems P.17 MARK CARWARDINE “These sanctimonious dogooders think they’re being clever by staging headline-grabbing roadblocks” P.29 LUCY COOKE Olive ridley turtles are connoisseurs of fine beaches and know just how to find them P.27 MIKE DILGER It’s breeding season for the great crested grebe, which means new plumage and a lot of dancing P.32…

DARTING HYPERACTIVELY AMONG THE first spring flowers of a garden, park or hedgerow, this fast-flying bee can seem intent on not letting you have a good look. But persevere, because it is a lovely insect and one of the few bees active in March. Often also called the featherfooted flower bee, it has distinctive brushlike tufts of long hair on the lower part of its legs. The bee likes to hover in front of flowers, sometimes with its tongue out. The hairy-footed flower bee is found in Wales and England as far north as Yorkshire (but is more common in the south-east). Due to its large size, it is often mistaken for a bumblebee. Its coloration is a giveaway, though: females are black with orange fur on the back legs;…

Said to be a favourite flower of the Queen, the primrose is appreciated by other queens too – bumblebees. In March, the plant’s yellow rosettes are a lifeline for newly emerged white-tailed and buff-tailed queens, as well as early bumblebees, bee-flies and butterflies. Find a primrose patch and enjoy a few mindful moments in nature as you wait to see what turns up. IN BRIEF Covered in dung Plants in Ecuador’s Chocó desert make dung beetles think their seeds are dung, due to a covering of hairs that pick up monkey dung. When the seeds are excreted, the beetles are fooled into removing them and burying the seeds away from potential predators and pathogens.…

IT HAS BEEN KNOWN FOR A WHILE THAT THE recovery of the pine marten in Ireland over recent decades has led to a corresponding increase in red squirrel numbers. This is because the pine marten preys on the invasive grey squirrel, which both competes for food with the red squirrel and carries a disease which is lethal to the native mammal. However, new research from Queen’s University Belfast and the University of St Andrew’s, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society, reveals that the situation is rather more complex. It suggests that current conservation policy may have the complete opposite effect from that intended and actually harm the red squirrel recovery. Although, overall, red squirrel numbers have increased at the expense of the grey following pine marten numbers recovering, there…

AS ONE OF THE FIRST MAJOR PUBLIC FIGURES TO promote organic agriculture, Prince Charles undeniably has some pretty lush green laurels to garland the head that will one day wear the crown. In that context, he was a natural choice to address last year’s COP26 climate change conference, telling world leaders that “restoring natural capital” and “accelerating nature-based solutions” were part of the solution to the environmental crisis. But, as the saying goes, fine words butter no parsnips – even organic ones – and Prince Charles and his family could do a lot more to live up to the aspirations he has set for the rest of the planet. With this in mind, a campaign was launched in 2021 by a group called Wild Card calling on the royals to…

Deadly cousin Despite their ant-like appearance, termites are actually more closely related to cockroaches, and belong to the same insect order, Blattodea. That doesn’t stop those larger, faster predators from hunting their cousins. “This cockroach was one of many feasting on termites that congregated under a lightbulb on the floor of a cowshed,” explains Ripan. Pack hunters Weaver ants (left) form colonies comprising up to several thousand individuals, and hunt in numbers to tackle larger prey – here, an unfortunate termite. Alates can’t stay in the air for long, and are essentially defenceless when on the ground. These ants are carrying the ill-fated termite to their football-sized nest. Easy pickings Each alate is focused on following a light source and finding a mate, so pays little attention to where it…

Email your questions to wildquestions@immediate.co.uk STUART BLACKMAN ANSWERS It depends how you look at it. Eggs don’t come any smaller than those laid by the bee hummingbird, the smallest bird in the world. Measuring 6mm in length and weighing just 0.2g, bee hummingbirds’ eggs are 1/10,000th of the weight of a 2kg ostrich egg. And yet, as a proportion of the size of the birds that lay them, an ostrich’s egg (1/50th of the weight of the mother) works out to be much smaller than a bee hummingbird’s (1/12th). An ostrich the size of a bee hummingbird would lay an egg weighing just 0.05g. And the egg of an ostrich-sized hummingbird would weigh 8kg. In absolute terms, an ostrich egg is the biggest laid by any living bird, but relative…

LAURIE JACKSON Beneath a cone snail’s decorated exterior hides an arsenal that makes slow-motion life no hurdle for this seafloor predator. A snorkel-like siphon sniffs out prey and, once it’s detected, the snail moves closer for the next stage of attack. Its long proboscis, guided by receptors at its tip, extends towards the fish, before spearing it at close range and injecting a fast-acting venom. Some species even secrete chemicals, including insulin, into the water to make their prey lethargic and more easily caught. The worm-hunting imperial cone snail also releases chemicals as it hunts. These mimic pheromones used by worms during courtship and allow the copycat to lure the worms from the safety of their hiding places, where they can be harpooned and engulfed by the snail’s vast, extendible…

Are jackrabbits rabbits? No, jackrabbits are hares. Six species are found in the USA, Mexico and Canada. Their name is derived from their old moniker of ‘jackass-rabbit’, in reference to their enormous, donkey like ears. A jackrabbit’s ears are a key adaptation, enabling it to hear well and regulate heat: blood flow is increased or decreased depending on whether an individual needs to cool down or warm up. SM Can ancient seeds germinate? It’s rare, but if stored in the right conditions, ancient seeds can indeed germinate. Date seeds carbon-dated to between 155BC and 64AD, that had been stored in a jar in the Judean desert, were successfully germinated in 2005, and grew into a palm tree. In 2007, scientists extracted an embryo from a 31,800-year-old campion seed, found in the…

What prompted the shift from drug dealing to working with nature? It didn’t happen overnight. It was mostly just a shift into trying to do something better, something that made a difference – a positive difference. At first, working to clean up the Anacostia River was just a job for me. Working with nature gave me time to think, and the more I thought, the more I wanted to start turning my life around. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. As I tell the young people I work with: sometimes you have to get out of your own damn way. How did you transition from clearing rubbish on the Anacostia River to becoming a falconer? After working on the Anacostia, the group I was working with – Earth…

Increasing sunlight hours and warmer temperatures means that spring is on the way and, with it, our invertebrate friends. Look out for buzzing bees and their lookalike flies. For more ID guides, head to our website: discoverwildlife.com/identify-wildlife TAWNY MINING BEE The females have dense orange-red fur and are larger than the males (which can look similar to other species). BUFF-TAILED BUMBLEBEE Queens can be identified by the colour of their tails, but workers look the same as white-tailed bumblebee workers. DARK-BORDERED BEE-FLY The most common and widespread of the bee-flies, it lays its eggs in the nests of solitary bees.…

PRIZE-WINNING PHOTO Cannibal frogs Generally when rain season comes outside my house, it is like a musical concert outside with all the frogs’ and toads’ mating calls. I lay down in the muddy ground in my garden to photograph some Asian common toads with my Nikon D90, Nikkor 105mm, 2.8 microlens and a DIY soft box made with cardboard. I saw multiple juvenile toads here and there, and was taken aback to see this larger individual capture one. It was over quickly, but I managed to take a number of images of the cannibalism. Chamara Sulakkhana, Ambalangoda, Sri Lanka I believe I can fly In September 2020, I had the privilege of spending several hours with a humpback whale mother and calf during a wildlife photography trip in Monterey Bay.…

RIVER DEE, WALES I’M WHAT MIGHT BE CALLED A fish twitcher, and an underwater photographer – I’ll never pass up an opportunity to poke my camera beneath the surface and spot something unusual in British waters. On this occasion it started with a tip off from someone I know at Natural Resource Wales – an opportunity to see a fish spawning event I’d only ever read about. It was April 2020 and the UK had just started to allow travel again. The location was in North Wales on the River Dee, a good two-hour drive from my home in Nottingham, so I was a bit worried the fish in question might not be around. I say fish, but river lamprey are incredibly primitive and, in fact, we are more closely…