Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2022 i BBC Wildlife Magazine

MAD DASH When raising chicks, the gentoo penguins of the Falkland Islands must make daily trips into the sea to fish, departing at first light and returning to their inland nests in the early evening. Eventually, as the chicks get bigger, they will move towards the shoreline and eagerly wait for their parents to return to the beaches with food. By spring, they will be following them out to sea, but with predatory sea lions, leopard seals and orcas patrolling the waters, adults and juveniles have got to keep moving – and fast!…

WHAT IS IT? It’s a leafhopper, part of the true bugs order known as Hemiptera. It was discovered by Alvin Helden of Anglia Ruskin University, who was documenting the insects of Kibale National Park, Uganda, to create field guides. One particular individual caught his eye with its metallic sheen – an unknown leafhopper belonging to the rare Phlogis genus. So rare, in fact, that it’s been more than 50 years since an individual from that genus has been recorded, and that was in the Central African Republic. The discovery was published in the journal Zootaxa. WHERE IS IT? Kibale National Park is located in western Uganda, close to the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is considered one of the best locations for chimpanzee tracking and is…

THE TERM ‘A GAGGLE OF GEESE’ HAS BEEN so-called since the 15th century, because when they get together geese become quite noisy and rowdy. But it’s only when they’re on the ground that they come in ‘gaggles’. Their other collective nouns depend on whether they’ve gathered on water (‘plump’) or are in flight (‘skein’, ‘team’ or ‘wedge’); the latter two reflecting their graceful travelling en masse.…

NORWAY’S LEADING CONSERVATION groups have condemned the Norwegian government for carrying out the biggest wolf cull in the country’s history. A total of 54 Eurasian wolves out of an estimated population of 110 animals have been shot following pressure from Norway’s sheep farming and hunting communities. The cull included 28 animals that lived within the ‘wolf zone’, where the protection of wolves is a priority. “This is a loss not only for the wolves but also for biodiversity and rule of law in nature conservation,” says WWF Norway CEO Karoline Andaur. “The wolf is critically endangered in Norway and we have a national responsibility to take care of it.” Christian Anton Smedshaug, state secretary to Norway’s minister of climate and environment, says, “The population target for wolves in Norway was…

1 KINCLAVEN BLUEBELL WOODS Found near Murthly in Perthshire, its mostly flat Ancient Woodland Walk takes you around the finest areas within this 81ha reserve. 2 BLICKLING ESTATE The National Trust manages this property in Norfolk, which has three main areas where you can enjoy the bluebells: the Temple Walk, the Great Wood and under the plane trees. Maps are available from the visitor centre. 3 ASHRIDGE ESTATE The beech wood at this Chilterns estate has a sparse understorey that doesn’t interfere with the floral display. The well-marked route starts and finishes from the visitor centre. 4 THE LOST GARDENS OF HELIGAN The restored estate near Mevagissey in Cornwall has extensive bluebell-rich woodlands. To see the best displays, head for the Lost Valley section of the garden. 5 COED CEFN…

Marine three-spined sticklebacks migrate out to sea in the winter, before returning to freshwater rivers in the spring to spawn. Freshwater threespined sticklebacks tend to stay in the same place for their entire lives. In spring, three-spined stickleback males develop a red throat and belly, and bright green flanks, and will fiercely protect their nest of eggs.…

It’s a crisp winter morning in Kent. I’m on the trail of a giant that once roamed prehistoric Britain alongside woolly mammoths and sabre-toothed cats. A muddy car park between a caravan dealer and a car body shop seems an unusual place to begin, but waiting for me are Tom Gibbs and Donovan Wright: Britain’s first bison rangers. This spring, bison return to the UK following an absence of thousands of years. A pioneering conservation scheme will reintroduce these long-lost mega-mammals to one of south-east England’s largest areas of ancient woodland. Tom and Don are based at Wildwood wildlife park, 8km outside Canterbury on the edge of the sprawling Blean Woods, known as ‘the Blean’. Selected from over 1,200 applicants for 2021’s coolest job vacancy, Tom and Don can’t quite…

Lowland tapir Tapirus terrestris They have a muscular crest with a mane and paler cheeks, ear tips and throats Baird’s tapir T. bairdii Smaller than the lowland tapir with no crest but a similar brown coat Mountain tapir T. pinchaque Found in the Andes, they have thick woolly fur and white on their ear tips and mouth Malayan tapir T. indicus The only tapir found in Asia, it is also the largest, growing up to 1.8m long…

Elephant Nature Park in Thailand This sanctuary for Asian elephants near Chang Mai began life in the 1990s, the brainchild of an inspiring local woman called Lek Chailert – who also started Save the Elephant Foundation. More than 100 elephants currently reside at ENP, rescued from logging and tourism camps, and the foundation has been particularly active during the pandemic, offering outreach to more than 1,500 captive elephants who have faced hunger and welfare issues. Visitors are welcome. Global Elephant Sanctuary in Brazil This huge 2,800-acre sanctuary was founded in 2016 in Chapada dos Guimarães and currently hosts five female Asian elephants, given up by zoos. The founder, American Scott Blais, says they have capacity for eight to ten elephants. The number will soon increase when four more elephants arrive…

Drainflies are most commonly encountered in bathrooms, where their worm-like larvae feed on bacterial films growing in the plumbing and dank corners. The adults have a habit of flitting around you in the shower, apparently untroubled by the possibility of a violent soaking. Their nonchalance has much to do with their coat of luxuriant body hair, which even covers their wings. Each hair is adorned with microscopic barbs and projections, which make them highly water-repellent, enabling the flies to shrug off fine mist and droplets much bigger than themselves. Should they fall into water, they can escape the surface tension with a mere flick of the wings. And if they do find themselves heading down a plughole, they can survive underwater for five hours thanks to a layer of breathable…

SOME ANIMAL SPECIES ENTER A state of suspended animation that is called ‘torpor’. And while it might look like torpid animals have just gone to sleep for a while, they’ve actually undergone profound physiological changes that include a dramatic drop in their body temperature. Is torpor like hibernation? Sort of. Some animals can enter ‘daily torpor’ for a few hours, but hibernating species remain torpid for days or weeks. Although often described as ‘multi-day torpor’, a hibernation period will also include cycles of sleep and wakefulness, and it’s unknown whether the torpid phases are exactly the same as daily torpor. While hibernating, small animals such as chipmunks are sustained by seeds stored in their burrows, whereas large hibernators, such as the black bear, must burn body fat (bears won’t eat,…

PRIZE-WINNING PHOTO Catch of the day One summer, I spent almost every day after work at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve on the coast of Orange County, California. I was shooting elegant terns when this brown pelican arrived. It made a few dives from the air and finally caught a mouthful of fish. As he tried to consume the fish, he opened his throat pouch and I got a dream shot with them jumping in his mouth – perfect! This was wildlife behaving naturally in the wild, with no bating or any human intervention. Jack Zhi, California, USA Colourful subject I saw this male purple-rumped sunbird perched on an ornamental banana and its colour took my breath away. Although the low light posed a slight problem, I was fortunate enough…

SINCE I WAS GIVEN MY FIRST subscription in 1996, I have been an avid reader of BBC Wildlife. This magazine and watching hours of documentaries presented by Sir David Attenborough are two of the reasons why I chose to pursue a career in conservation. I was therefore surprised when in the opening sequence of BBC One’s The Green Planet, Attenborough says that all life on Earth is dependent upon plants – a statement repeated by Simon Barnes in his feature Sir David Attenborough’s Green Planet (February 2022). While this statement is indeed true for the vast majority of life, it neglects the hydrothermal vents! Discovered in 1977 by scientists exploring the Galápagos Rift, these ecosystems rocked our understanding of the evolution of life as they do not require any energy…

If you were to ask someone to provide photographic evidence of the existence of fairies, the picture you’d end up with would probably look a lot like this. Needless to say, what you’re seeing here aren’t fairies: they’re glow worms. But despite being commonly referred to as such, these bioluminescent bugs are actually gnats, specifically fungus gnats (Arachnocampa luminosa), photographed inside the Waipu Caves in New Zealand. It’s only the female fungus gnats that glow, partly to attract males, but also to lure prey towards the sticky silk-thread snares they produce and hang from the cave roof. Any flies or mosquitoes unfortunate enough to get too close, soon find themselves stuck to the thread, which then gets wound in so the freshly caught meal can be enjoyed. This image, taken…

THE GOVERNMENT HAS RESPONDED to the 2019 Landscapes Review with a raft of measures to boost nature recovery and safeguard England’s protected areas. The review, led by writer and journalist Julian Glover, was requested by the government as part of its 25-year Environment Plan and aimed to assess how our national parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) are run, but its response was delayed by Brexit and the pandemic. The government's proposals are now subject to a 12-week consultation, until 9 April. It has taken on board many of the review’s recommendations regarding widening access for under-represented social groups and has committed to ensuring these protected landscapes do more for climate change mitigation and addressing the biodiversity crisis. Nonetheless, some people feel the government has ignored what was…

WHILE MAKING UP HER MIND ABOUT WHAT TO study at university, Kathelijne Koops oscillated between biology and veterinary science. When push came to shove, she was most excited about researching animals in their natural environment and went off to study Biology at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, followed by a PhD in Biological Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. “My love for primates, and especially chimpanzees, goes back to when I was a little girl and saw Jane Goodall on television. I was immediately hooked on the idea of studying wild chimpanzees in the jungle,” says Kathelijne. “Funnily enough, this is exactly what I ended up doing! As a biological anthropologist I’m very much interested in the behaviour of apes but I’m also intrigued by what their behaviour…

IN LATE JANUARY A YOUNG LOGGERHEAD turtle – probably the smallest of its kind ever found in the UK – was found alive on a beach on the Scottish island of Iona. The record follows a small run of Kemp’s ridley turtles washed up on beaches, mainly in the aftermath of Storm Arwen, with only one of those discovered alive. These records are sadly typical, involving young turtles brought here in the Gulf Stream from warm tropical seas. Most are found in the winter months, dead or moribund, unused to our colder waters and suffering from shock, as they cannot regulate their own body temperature. The leatherback, by far the largest marine turtle, is the exception: it can regulate its body temperature so is able to visit the UK much…

Like the scats of other small mustelids, the droppings of polecats are dark, twisted and cigarette-sized. “However, unlike other carnivores such as foxes, pine martens and otters, polecats don’t leave their scats in obvious places in their territory,” says Lizzie Croose, senior carnivore conservation officer at Vincent Wildlife Trust. “Scats are usually left in or close to den sites and may accumulate into substantial piles.” Polecat scat often contains fur from prey and smells unpleasant.…

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Extinct STEPPE BISON Bison priscus Depicted in cave paintings, the steppe bison (right) had longer horns than today’s bison, and a double hump. It disappeared at the end of the last ice age, about 12,000 years ago. WOODLAND BISON Bison schoetensacki The woodland bison appeared in the Pleistocene when its range extended from western Europe to southern Siberia. The species existed in Britain and its fossilised bones were found at Cromer in Norfolk. Alive EUROPEAN BISON Bison bonasus The European bison, or wisent, is adapted to living in woodlands. Slightly taller than the American bison with less dense fur, it browses on leaves, fruit and woody parts of plants. AMERICAN BISON Bison bison Stockier and shaggier than the European bison, the American bison (right), or buffalo, grazes on low-lying grass…

There are few parasites that quicken the pulse of conservationists, and fewer still that are highlighted as flagship species, but that is the fate of the freshwater pearl mussel on English and Welsh rivers and streams. This is in part because of their extraordinary life-cycle: vast numbers of tiny larvae, known as glochidia, are released by the mature female into the stream. They must then be inhaled by young salmon or trout and fix onto their gills - this is the parasitic stage - where a cyst forms and they spend about nine months in this rich, oxygenated environment before dropping off into the river gravels and beginning their journey to adulthood. And what a journey this is, in terms of time if not distance. To begin to understand the…

Visually and genetically there isn’t much between the two great apes. Chimpanzees and bonobos share approximately 99.6 per cent of their DNA and can be hard to tell apart. In fact, bonobos were once thought to be merely smaller versions, and called pygmy chimpanzees. To the trained eye, bonobos are more graceful and slender, with differently shaped and coloured faces. You are also more likely to see them walking on two legs. However, it is in their social systems that you really see divergence. Rather than having a strict male hierarchy like chimps, they are a matriarchal society: the girls very much rule the bonobo world. Groups are generally led by an alpha female, females almost always have a higher social standing than males, and males derive their status from…

That would be the shortfin mako, capable of reaching speeds of more than 70km per hour. Known as the peregrine of the sea, its predilection for swift swimming is a result of its torpedo-shaped body and powerful tail, which propels it through the water. Its skin is also covered in scales, known as denticles, that reduce drag. Adults have no known natural predators, which is just as well, as they’d outswim them anyway. FACT. Hippos recognise each other’s honking voices and can distinguish between neighbours and strangers. They aggressively spray dung when they hear from hippo groups they dislike.…

Flamingo By Claudio Contreras Koob and Martha A. Salazar, teNeues, £35 STEP INTO THE WORLD OF the Caribbean flamingo with this beautiful photographic book from nature photographer Claudio Contreras Koob and author Martha A. Salazar. With their dramatic colouring and elegant posture, flamingos lend themselveswell to being very photogenic subjects. But Claudio’s intimate images and depth of understanding of the birds offers readers an especially fascinating insight into the little-seen world of these most striking birds. With breathtaking detail, and featuring text in English, German and Spanish, the book takes us on a journey following the lives and life-cycle of the Caribbean flamingo, including glimpses into their behaviour and their wetland habitats in the Yucatán, Mexico. Having spent much of his life since childhood in the Yucatán, Claudio has an appreciation…

How did you get into wildlife photography? I’ve loved wildlife since the age of four. I bought my first SLR camera and lens at 13 years old and took lots of absolutely hopeless pictures, but slowly got better. You organise the Wild Wonders events – what are these? Wild Wonders is a concept that we use to showcase a region’s natural heritage (so far, Europe and China) through imagery, design and film. The idea is to knock people’s socks off with wonder – as what you love, you’ll protect. Wild Wonders of Europe has reached more than 800 million people. What’s your biggest wildlife photography fail? I was on Ellesmere Island, Canada, in -40?C and wanted to photograph a wolf on top of a pyramid-like hill, in the last rays…

ACROSS 1 Small auk with a bright bill (6) 4 Convention on wetland conservation (6) 8 Cattle species, extinct since the 1600s (7) 9 ___ sparrow (Passer hispaniolensis), a European songbird (7) 11 Tiny dairy-eating creature (6,4) 12 Hummingbird or ostrich, for example (4) 13 Indian region known for its biodiversity (5) 14 Large leaping marsupial (8) 16 Pink long-legged wetland bird (8) 18 ___ buffalo, powerful bovine originating in southern Asia (5) 20 Ova (4) 21 Tube-like organ used for depositing 20 Across (10) 23 Georg Wilhelm ___, the 18th-century German naturalist (7) 24 ___ plover, small shorebird belonging to the family Charadriidae (7) 25 ___ sparrow, also commonly called the cinnamon sparrow (6) 26 Predatory aquatic mammals (6) DOWN 1 Feature of a marsupial mother (5) 2 Blooms…

NICK BAKER “The 15-spined stickleback resembles a straightened seahorse, as one excited rock-pooler told me” P.36 GILLIAN BURKE The Springwatch presenter visits a school and wonders if the study of biology is losing its way P.17 MARK CARWARDINE Our outspoken columist believes it’s time there was a ban on all industrial highseas fishing P.29 LUCY COOKE Naked mole rat colonies are ruled by a single despotic queen who is immune to ageing P.27 MIKE DILGER “Our islands probably hold more bluebells than the rest of the world put together” P.32…

IN SOME RARE GOOD NEWS FOR AFRICAN large mammals, the overall number of giraffes has increased by almost 20 per cent since 2015 and now stands at just over 117,000 individuals, according to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF). Numbers of all four species of giraffe (Masai, northern, southern and reticulated) are increasing or stable. “This is the first time that such trends have been reported in recent history,” says GCF's co-director Stephanie Fennessy. However, the charity warns that the giraffe population remains precariously low, particularly when compared to that of the African elephant – there is only one giraffe for every three to four elephants. The increase in giraffe numbers is being attributed to a range of factors. “In some giraffe populations we singlehandedly doubled the number of giraffes through…

WE TEND TO ASSOCIATE MIMICRY IN the plant world with orchids, famous for copying the appearance and scent of female bees and flies to tempt the males to visit and pollinate them. Some will lure hungry insect pollinators by mimicking foul-smelling dung or corpses. The red deadnettle has found a different way to be sneaky: its hairy, saw-edged leaves resemble those of stinging nettles. It’s thought this mimicry helps deter browsing animals. The harmless deadnettle even grows in the same places as its pain-inducing relative. Two other abundant wayside species, white dead-nettle and yellow archangel, also have lookalike leaves. Red dead-nettle can be found in flower pretty much all year in the British Isles, but is most noticeable in April and May, before it becomes hidden by taller plants. Its…

AN IRIDESCENT JEWEL NESTLES AMONGST the plumage of many ducks. Formed from secondary wing feathers, the speculum is most obvious during flight. Otherwise, it appears as a glinting rhomboid of saturated colour on each flank. It may play a role in species recognition, but it’s probably no coincidence that it is positioned on the very spot that ducks ritually preen themselves during courtship and displays.…

BIOLOGISTS HAVE PUBLISHED THE FIRST observations of orcas hunting and eating an adult blue whale, the largest animal ever to have existed. Flinders University biologist Isabella Reeves was among those who witnessed the event from a research boat off south-west Australia. “It was pouring down with rain, there was lightning in the background. I was at the point where I was starting to feel seasick when we stumbled across it,” she says. “I forgot all about my seasickness. We just had to gather as much data as we could.” The observations are presented in all their grisly detail in the journal Marine Mammal Science. The attack involved about 14 orcas and was led by the adult females. The blue whale was estimated to be 18-22m long and was apparently healthy.…

HIBERNATING MAMMALS FUEL THEIR long winter sleep in part by breaking down their muscle tissues. So how do they manage to emerge fighting fit come spring? New research shows that some enlist the help of gut microbes to recycle their waste materials and maintain protein balance. Thirteen-lined ground squirrels hibernate for six months of the year. “It’s an enormous amount of time that they’re curled up in a ball not doing anything,” says Hannah Carey, who led the work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The research, published in Science, shows that hibernating squirrels divert urea – a waste product usually expelled in urine – to the gut, where it is fed on by specialised bacteria that produce ammonia as their own waste product. This can be re-absorbed by the squirrels…

NAKED MOLE RATS THE QUEST FOR ETERNAL YOUTH IS humanity’s greatest unsolved mystery. There is one mammal that’s quietly cracked this riddle. Though it’s hard to tell from her wrinkly pink appearance, the naked mole rat queen is all but immune to ageing. In addition to being resistant to common age-related killers like cancer and cardiovascular disease, her risk of dying doesn’t actually increase with age – her physiology remains as functional as the day she was born and she can live nine times longer than expected. Naked mole rats are a true scientific wonder. The world’s only cold-blooded mammals can survive 18 minutes without oxygen and feel no pain. They live in vast underground colonies in east Africa, but I met the blind burrowers in a very hot cupboard…

BLUEBELLS IN BLOOM PRODUCING ONE OF THE GREATEST wildflower shows on Earth, the bluebell has many fans. Indeed, it came as no surprise when the bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) was named Britain’s favourite flower in a 2002 poll that was part of Plantlife’s County Flowers project. The plant’s stupendously synchronous showing has been celebrated for a lot longer than a couple of decades, though – its blooms figure prominently in the poems of John Clare and Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose writings date back to Victorian times. And if the violet-blue haze created by a carpet of these nodding flowers isn’t enough to convert even the most reluctant of wordsmiths into a budding poet, then perhaps nothing is. The show put on by this most recognisable of woodland flowers is also a…

Thirsty work Like zebras at a waterhole, western honeybees line up at a small pool to collect water. But they aren’t simply quenching their thirst: water is used to cool the nest (workers fan their wings to promote evaporation) and dilute the honey that is fed to the older larvae. Frozen in flight Keeping her head steady as she prepares to land, this honeybee constantly scans her environment with eyes and antennae – sensing touch, taste and smell – enabling her to navigate to food sources and home again. Hot buzz Thermal imaging reveals temperature differences between less-active bees (blue), those preparing for take-off (white) and others that are warming the nest (paler orange) – vibrating flight muscles to keep it about 35°C. Home sweet home A swarm arrives at…

Listen to Lucy’s three-part series, Political Animals, on BBC Sounds CONSERVATION heroes come in all shapes and sizes, but none as mysterious as the tapir. Latin America’s largest native land mammal is a peculiar-looking beast that swims like a hippopotamus and climbs like a goat. It also eats like an elephant, using an elongated prehensile snout to pluck the tastiest fruit and leaves and deliver them into a decidedly equine mouth. The tapir appears to have been cobbled together from an eclectic assortment of random beasts. The overall effect is quite prehistoric, which is fitting: the tapir hasn’t really changed in more than 35 million years, earning it the title of ‘living fossil’. Its closest living relative is the rhinoceros. The tapir shares a profoundly shy nature with its distant…

The collector of an NFT owns only a token – a type of digital certificate of ownership. Its value is determined by what someone is willing to pay for it, based on exclusivity and the photographer. The photographer owns the original image copyright and the collector can’t reproduce the image. Sometimes the photographer will include a print as a nice gesture, or maybe the collector would want to possess the image file (ie JPEG) the token represents. That’s fine, but neither is where the NFT gets its value. Imagine a Manchester United jersey signed by Ronaldo. If he were to sign it and then provide a certificate stating it is the only one he has ever signed, it would be the certificate, not the jersey itself, that is of most…

GANDHI, A 52-YEAR-OLD ASIAN elephant, is picking at windfall apples when an intruder darts through her enclosure. It’s Woody, the farm cat. Ghandi’s ears flare and she swivels, chasing the fleeing feline towards her heated barn. She plunges indoors and doesn’t reappear, likely preferring the warmth to the chill of an autumn day in southern France. Ghandi was the first elephant to take up residence here at Elephant Haven, a sanctuary co-founded by ex-zookeeper Sofie Goetghebeur and Tony Verlust in 2016. It’s the largest elephant sanctuary in western Europe, comprising 29ha of beautiful mixed woodland and ponds. Ghandi arrived here in October 2021 from a cash-strapped Brittany Zoo. She had been spirited away from her mother, likely in Thailand, when a baby, in 1973, and has spent her entire life…

The spring equinox, 19-21th March, is given human significance due to the mathematical elegance of day and night becoming equal lengths. But the lengthening of the days as spring progresses does have significance for wildlife too. The days are gradually warming, and this is sensed by hibernating insects, though they have to be careful to measure the gently increasing temperature average, given that the difference between particular days and nights can vary a lot. Day length also has an effect on plants, which cumulatively photosynthesise during the lenghtening daylight hours. Plant-feeding insects will likely detect this change. In my garden, the bee fly Bombylius major is the harbinger of spring and often appears around 2oth March.…

Most fish capable of generating their own electricity use it to interpret the world, just as bats use echolocation. Once such species is the brown ghost knifefish, found in parts of South America. Considered a weakly electric fish, it produces an electric field around its body by continuously emitting pulses of less than two volts from modified muscles. This forcefield is too weak to stun, but does assist the fish in navigating low light and murky waters, and enables them to detect nearby objects. Electricity also appears to have a role in maintaining social status. The knifefish communicate using electric signals, known as chirps, some of which are used to express dominance or show submission. These electrical messages appear to help prevent encounters escalating to more aggressive moves like chasing…

Why do some plants close their flowers in the day? Flowers either remain permanently open or only open at certain times of the day, depending on who their pollinators are and when they are most active. Evening primroses are a good example, opening in the evening when moths are most active. The flowers open and close thanks to environmental cues such as temperature, humidity and light level. Wild salsify or Jack-go-tobed-at-noon, as its name might suggest, only opens in the morning, shutting up shop by lunchtime. DH Who is Anna of Anna’s hummingbird? Found along the western edge of North America, this tiny, pink-splashed hummingbird was named after Anna Masséna, the French Duchess of Rivoli, by 19th-century naturalist René Primavère Lesson. The species is common and widespread on the Pacific Coast…

What makes flamingos such interesting subjects to photograph? My father comes from the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, and I’ve been visiting this part of the country since my childhood. I can think of no other animal that is as emblematic to this region than the flamingo. I’ve been transfixed by their colour and grace since I first saw them. What was the biggest challenge you faced when photographing them? The biggest challenge was to get close to the colony without disturbing the nesting birds – one single bird can cause a panic in the flock. So I started by watching the colony from afar, learning how they behave and how to tell if they were feeling nervous. It wasn’t until the third season of photographing them that I decided to…

ALONGSIDE STUDYING AN ONLINE COURSE TO pursue a career in conservation, Ashley Greening volunteers with Surrey Wildlife Trust at Nower Woods Educational Nature Reserve, a private reserve near Leatherhead with semi-ancient oak woodland. What does your volunteering involve? I’ve been both an educational and conservation volunteer for just over a year. As an educational volunteer I get the pleasure of spending time at the reserve passing on my knowledge of the outdoors and wildlife. This can be through things like pond-dipping or a minibeast safari. As a conservation volunteer I love to get my hands dirty. Generally, I’ll turn up at the reserve that I’m going to that day and find out what jobs I can do to help the wildlife – and sometimes the humans that walk around the…

“I was in a dark tunnel and the light at the end had gone out. I speak metaphorically as I’d been suddenly thrust into a serious mental health crisis in the middle of the British winter-time. I was locked into some kind of fight-or-flight survival mode, terrified by my own thoughts, and becoming increasingly desperate to end my inner turmoil. I’d experienced similar only once before and I needed somehow to get away, like my life depended on it. By a stroke of luck two good friends of mine were heading to the Pyrenees imminently for some birding. They agreed to take me. Going on holiday had never caused me such deep anxiety. But we made it without incident. The ultimate prize would have been to see a black-winged kite.…