Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2022 i BBC Wildlife Magazine

DRIVING AT THE NATIONAL SPEED LIMIT on a single carriageway can give you an insight into the dazzling speed of the Arabian gazelle, which can reach up to 60mph (97kmph). These impressive sprinters are found across the Arabian Peninsula, from the far south of the Arava Valley in Israel through Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where this photograph was taken in the desert. The total population of Arabian gazelles is estimated to number well below 10,000 mature individuals – populations in the UAE are small and scattered. The major threats to the species are illegal hunting for meat and live capture for pets and private collections. The Arabian Desert is the fifth largest desert in the world. Wild inhabitants of this hostile environment are well-adapted…

FOLLOWING THE RELEASE OF NAZANIN Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori from prison in Iran in March, attention has turned to the third person it was hoped would be freed at the same time: Morad Tahbaz. A British-American businessman and philanthropist, Tahbaz was part of a group of nine scientists and conservationists arrested in 2018, accused of spying on military installations. They had been involved in a project using remote cameras to survey Iran’s Asiatic cheetahs, a critically endangered subspecies with a population that may be as low as just 50 individuals. All deny the claims of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that they’d been passing classified information to the USA, and it’s not clear why they have been detained. According to Eugene Chudnovsky, who is co-chair of the Committee of…

SCIENTISTS HAVEN’T QUITE GOT TO THE bottom of the florid sexual swellings on the behinds of female baboons. They are most spectacular in the fertile phase of the reproductive cycle, when males show the greatest interest. However, it’s not clear that females with the fruitiest booties enjoy greater success. In mandrills, it’s the males that have the rum bums – the more dominant the male, the more louche the tush.…

VU HOAI NAM DANG, PHD FELLOW FROM THE University of Copenhagen, has spent nearly 10 years investigating the illegal wildlife trade. Funded by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and the EU, his latest study focuses on how legalising the rhino horn trade would affect consumer behaviour. “Consumers prefer horns from wild or semi-wild rhinos to those from captive-bred rhinos,” he says. His research reveals that consumers would buy wild horns from illegal vendors if legal supplies were not enough. “The illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade poses a major threat to biodiversity conservation and drives many species to extinction,” says Nam. He explains that many studies have been conducted on the consumption of “regular wildlife products” (accessible to lower-income groups) but very few focus on high-value ones. “I reached…

VAGRANT SPECIES DIARY FOLLOWING SIGHTINGS IN LINCOLNSHIRE in May 2021 and the Isles of Scilly a month later, an adult Egyptian vulture eventually resurfaced in Ireland during the winter. Known to be nomadic and unpredictable, and having been missing for months, the bird was eventually rediscovered settled in County Roscommon, Ireland, roosting in an innocuous-looking belt of trees and visiting a nearby sheep carcass for food. The species has occurred in Britain on a few occasions, sometimes as an escapee from captivity. The last Egyptian vulture believed likely to have been wild was seen in the 19th century, as adjudicated by the British Birds Rarities Committee, which looks at clues such as behaviour, age, location, condition, weather and established vagrancy patterns to establish a bird’s likely origin. Could this recent…

WHAT’S IN A NAME? THE TERM ‘A DESCENT OF WOODPECKERS’ comes from the bird’s peculiar habits. The green woodpecker is one of three species indigenous to the UK and it descends to the ground more frequently than the great or lesser spotted varieties. When it’s not swooping down from great heights onto ants, it’s going from the top of one tree to the base of another. It even descends by climbing down tree trunks.…

THE CATTLE EGRET IS A LITTLE WHITE heron with global ambitions. It is familiar throughout the tropics and spreading in temperate regions – the species ranges over more of the world than any other land bird, with the possible exception of the barn owl. It has even turned up on the remote South Orkney Islands, which – as the egret flies – are not that far from Antarctica. And now the cattle egret appears to be colonising England. Cattle egrets have bred, or attempted to, in several English counties, often near the nests of little egrets or grey herons. For now, the breeding population is tiny, but birders hope to see more displaying birds this May and June. Cattle egrets look their best in breeding season, with long ‘nuptial plumes’…

PART OF THE MOST WILDLIFE-RICH ZONE in the world could be turned into an open-cast copper mine if a recent ruling in Ecuador stands. A group of 12 research, conservation and environmental organisations has condemned the judgement by the Cotacachi regional court, and a legal team representing local communities is now appealing the decision to approve the mine. Intag, in a mountainous area of northern Ecuador, is part of the Tropical Andes Biodiversity Hotspot, which is unequalled for biodiversity. The cloud forests of Intag are home to many critically endangered creatures and are rich in rare amphibians. These include the longnose harlequin toad, rediscovered here in 2016, having been thought extinct for decades. A new species of rocket frog – whose name is being chosen in an online poll from…

BBC Wildlife is delivered free to your door, wrapped in fully recyclable paper packaging GREAT REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE: • Pay just £20.95 every 6 issues – saving 30% on the shop price* • Only £3.49 per issue (usually £4.99 RRP) • Never miss an issue of your favourite wildlife magazine • Free UK delivery direct to your door …then get the world’s best wildlife magazine delivered to your door for just £20.95 every six issues, a saving of 30% on the shop price* The bee nester is constructed in durable FSC-certified timber with additional stacking trays, which you can open for inspection and cleaning. Always a friend to the gardener, attracting solitary bees to the garden is not only safe but beneficial to the pollination of flowers, fruit and vegetables.…

Nettle Urtica spp. Grow in as large a clump as you have space for, in full sun, and look out for large ‘tents’ of caterpillars, or a single larva in a rolled-up leaf. Attracts: small tortoiseshell, red admiral, peacock, painted lady and comma Holly Ilex spp. The high-flying holly blue butterfly feeds on the flower buds, berries and terminal leaves of holly in spring, and ivy in summer. Grow as a shrub, small tree or as part of a hedge. They are not fussy plants and need minimal pruning. Attracts: holly blue Garlic mustard Alliaria petiolata Grows well in shady spots and its leaves have a faint whiff of garlic. Remember that orange-tips overwinter as pupae on the old stems, so avoid cutting back spent plants. Attracts: orange-tip and green-veined…

Puma In remote Patagonia, a female puma, Rupestre, is raising four cubs. As well as facing the challenge of hunting guanaco to feed them, she must protect her territory from a rival female and prevent a male from killing her young. Cheetah On the grasslands of Zambia, Kali the cheetah is battling to raise her three daughters. So challenging is life here that only two of her previous 14 cubs have survived. Until her cubs can fend for themselves, she must hunt ever more dangerous prey – and hold on to it. Elephant Angelina is a female elephant and has just given birth to twins – a rare event in the elephant world. As they learn their way in the world, the calves are threatened with treacherously thick mud, aggression…

What was it like for you filming in a virtual studio? David: I’ve done quite a bit in studios one way or another over the past few years, so I’m accustomed to doing that sort of thing. But we’ve gone far beyond the old days and green screens of the cinema. When I walked into the studio the images were all already there – the back end of the studio was a forest on fire, and it was very, very impressive too. It’s quite unsettling suddenly to go in and see fire leaking through the frames of a forest that aren’t in the studio, but that’s what it looks like. Helen: It’s a very new technique this virtual studio, pioneered on the Disney+ series The Mandalorian. And the differences between…

IN BETWEEN HER VOLUNTEERING WORK WITH the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), Izzy Fry is currently studying for her GCSEs and eventually hopes to study wildlife conservation and ecology at university. Last year, she was the winner of the Young Person’s Award in the National Biodiversity Network Awards for Wildlife Recording. Who do you volunteer for? I spend all of my free time volunteering for various places and organisations, such as the BTO, helping to conserve and protect local wildlife and nature. This includes bird ringing; undertaking water vole, butterfly and farmland bird surveys; and helping out with small mammal trapping. That’s a lot! Which activity takes up most of your time – and how does it help wildlife? The main volunteering area I put my time into is bird…

LOS PADRES NATIONAL FOREST, CALIFORNIA THE SKIES WERE PARTLY CLOUDY, the air cool and crisp as winter morphed into spring. While scaling the gritty sandstone crags of Lion Canyon in the Los Padres National Forest, I searched for California condors, a Pleistocene remnant and a species on the brink of extinction. It was 1996 and the US Fish and Wildlife Service was releasing captive-bred condors into their historic habitat. Early on, Lion Canyon was a vital release site. Its remote, backcountry wilds were ideal for re-establishing populations. I was in the throes of a five-day backpacking trip, hoping to get my first photograph of these raptors. I scanned all the obvious roosting and potential nesting sites – Lion Canyon is honeycombed with alcoves, grottoes and clefts – but by day…

ADAZZLING LIGHT SHOW THAT WOULD outdo any nightclub takes place every spring along the UK’s southern and western coasts. The annual shindig is when common cuttlefish breed – and they like to do it in style. Having spent most of the year lurking further offshore, crowds of cuttlefish now head to the shallows to cavort and (hopefully) get lucky. As rival males whoosh to and fro, they communicate their status and intentions with mesmerising pulses of colour that sweep across their skin. They also send signals by adjusting their silhouette using their eight arms, paired tentacles and frilly fins. Females also indicate their own mood with complex gestures and light displays. Common cuttlefish are cephalopods, and, like their octopus and squid relatives, have very special skin. It is packed with…

Michaela Strachan talks redstarts on Tweet of the Day MAY IS AN EXCELLENT TIME TO SEEK out redstarts, among the most beautiful of our summer migrants. They are mainly birds of old oak woods, especially in the north and west, but can also be seen in hill country with scattered trees. On upland farms, they often feed along dry-stone walls, dropping to the ground to catch flies on sheep dung. In his book English Pastoral, the farmer-author James Rebanks delights in their “little red tails… flitting along by the sheep from one thorn tree to the next. Their tails flash with each wing beat, little triangular wedges of freshly cut mahogany.” This is the feature for which the birds are named, ‘start’ being derived from the Old English for ‘tail’.…

THE return of swallows to our islands from their African wintering grounds is a sure sign that spring has well and truly sprung. And yet it seems that some never even left. This winter has seen an unprecedented spike in swallow sightings submitted to BirdTrack, a citizen-science database operated by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). By the end of February, 95 sightings had been registered in the southern half of the UK and in Ireland. The clustering of records suggests a total of 12 birds. “To suggest that our winters would be warm enough for swallows to survive would have been unthinkable a few decades ago,” said BTO director of science James Pearce-Higgins. “But the evidence that our climate is changing is building year by year.” According to the…

Ridiculously cute roe deer kids are born in May and June, often hidden in long grass or bracken, where their spotty coats provide camouflage. Twins are the norm, unlike in Britain’s larger deer, and the young now taking their first wobbly steps are the result of matings last summer. In the 1923 book of the same name, Bambi was a roe deer, not a fallow deer as many people assume. IN BRIEF Mini meadows Even a tiny patch of wildflowers in a garden can increase the diversity of visiting pollinators. The Journal of Insect Conservation reports that a 2 x 2m plot results in 111 per cent more bumblebees, 87 per cent more solitary bees and 85 per cent more solitary wasps than unmodified gardens.…

ID GUIDE Hedgehog droppings can range from 1.5 to 5cm in length, and are dark brown, grey or black. Usually found as a singular dropping, the poo smells mildly unpleasant, described as having a hint of linseed oil. Droppings are cylindrical, sometimes tapered on one end. “Look for shiny bits, which are often present – they’re remnants of invertebrates, such as beetles,” says Fay Vass from the British Hedgehog Preservation Society.…

ORCHID MEADOWS Mike Dilger’s WILDLIFE SPECTACLES The broadcaster, naturalist and tour guide shares the most breathtaking seasonal events in Britain SURELY NO OTHER HABITAT HARKENS back to a bygone era more than a lowland meadow brimming with orchids. Despite providing perhaps Britain’s finest pinkish-purple spectacle, the disappearance of 97 per cent of all our orchid meadows since World War II is a tragic and all-too-familiar tale. In a battle that pitched flower-rich meadows against both rapidly changing farming methods and the needs of an ever-expanding population, there was only ever going to be one winner. Meadows are often considered the quintessential summer habitat, as this is when the elevated temperatures see the meadow thrumming with grasshoppers, bumblebees and butterflies. But for those with a botanical bent, May is certainly the…

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHERS Neil Aldridge is a photographer, film-maker, speaker and professional wildlife guide, focussing on conservation issues. @aldridgephoto Matt Maran is a wildlife photographer specialising in stories close to his home in north London. @mattmaranphoto Andy Parkinson is an award-winning photographer, Nikon Europe Ambassador and contributes to National Geographic magazine. @andyparkinsonphoto The photographers’ book, Fox: Neighbour Villain Icon (Hemisphere Publishing, £35), is available from foxbook.shop…

BUTTERFLIES AND FLOWERS GO TOGETHER like jam and cream. Each is wonderful in its own right, but together they make something special. Watching butterflies flit around my mini meadow and tumble over the plants in my border makes my heart leap, and is one of the many rewards of gardening for wildlife. Seeing these pretty insects in our gardens is good for the soul – butterflies make us happy! Sadly, these often-colourful pollinators are in serious decline. Results from the 2021 UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS), led by Butterfly Conservation, the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, the British Trust for Ornithology and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, show that in terms of abundance, 2021 was a below-average year for UK butterflies, including many of our common and widespread species.…

BY AUTUMN 2022, IT WILL be nine years since the then government initiated the first two pilot badger culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset. Since then, culling has expanded to cover nearly 37,000km² of the south-west and west of England, and (not including figures from 2021) taken the lives of some 143,000 badgers at a cost to the public purse of £47 million. If it carries on as planned, some campaigners opposed to culling have estimated that 280,000 badgers will be killed, perhaps three-quarters of the entire UK population. And the result of this wholescale, licensed killing of a protected species? According to a new study, there has been no significant decrease in levels of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle that can be attributed to culling, the sole reason for embarking…

Email your questions to wildquestions@immediate.co.uk Why do so few birds bear weapons? STUART BLACKMAN ANSWERS Birds lack arms in more ways than one. Avian equivalents of antlers, horns, tusks and canine teeth are few and far between – only about two per cent of our feathered friends possess specialised weapons in the form of spurs on their legs and wings. If push comes to shove, claws and beaks are capable of inflicting some damage, but these are built primarily for other purposes. It’s probably no coincidence that most of the species that do pack dedicated weaponry are ground-feeding fowl – turkeys, chickens, pheasants, peacocks and the like – which don’t fly much, or indeed at all. For flying animals, weight is critical. A small reduction in payload can save a…

There’s nothing quite like the sight of a cloud of male banded demoiselles dancing at the edge of a river on a sunny day. We’re celebrating three blue damselflies that you can seek out. More ID guides are on our website: discoverwildlife.com/identify-wildlife BANDED DEMOISELLE Males are blue with banded wings. Seen around ponds, lakes and slow-moving rivers. BLUE-TAILED DAMSELFLY The male has a striking blue band at the end of its tail, and is known to visit garden ponds. COMMON BLUE DAMSELFLY One of our most widespread and common species of damselfly, it regularly visits garden ponds.…

PRIZE-WINNING PHOTO Who goes there? My wife and I encountered this stag being very vocal while on a trip to see the rut at Glen Lyon. I was hidden in a copse, but he heard me when I stepped on a branch and it broke. He came to within about 50m of my position to sound out one final threatening bellow before galloping back to his herd. It was an exhilarating moment and I was very glad to catch his final pose. A truly stunning animal. Lister Cumming, Greenloaning, Perthshire WIN SOME LOVELY SANDALS Worth £80! Featuring best-in-class flexibility, comfort and design, the Drift Creek sandal from KEEN offers enhanced performance on land or at the water’s edge. Super lightweight with a lowprofile design, the Drift Creek has an advanced…

NICK BAKER “You can find hydras in your local pond and they’re as terrifying as the mythological one” P.36 GILLIAN BURKE The Watches presenter says it’s time we confronted the corruption in scientific research funding P.17 MARK CARWARDINE Our outspoken columnist will return with his views in the June issue (on sale 2nd June) LUCY COOKE When it comes to raising young, female swamp wallabies are masters of multitasking P.27 MIKE DILGER “Understanding the need to manage sympathetically is particularly important for orchids” P.32…

May sees the first dragonflies patrolling weedy ditches and pools. They’re usually hairy dragonflies, which fly early in the year. To tell them apart from other species, you’ll need a clear view of a perched dragonfly to make out the hirsute thorax (it’s hard to see when it’s flying). Hairy dragonflies are found mostly in the south – the Somerset Levels and Norfolk Broads are hotspots. 10 deadliest animals (to us) Appearance and size can be deceiving when it comes to animals that kill humans. 1 MOSQUITOES (Culicidae family) Mosquitoes transmit infectious pathogens causing over 725,000 deaths annually. 2 HUMANS (Homo sapiens) Are responsible for an estimated 431,000 human deaths every year. 3 FRESHWATER SNAILS (Gastropoda class) Host deadly parasites known as flukes, estimated to kill 200,000 people a year.…

WHAT IS IT? Originally thought to be an adult of a different fairy wrasse species, Cirrhilabrus rubrisquamis, further analysis of both adults and juveniles of this beautiful fish has revealed that it is in fact a separate species. It has been named the rose-veiled fairy wrasse, Cirrhilabrus finifenmaa. WHERE IS IT? The new species lives on ‘twilight zone’ reefs 50 to 150 metres deep off the coast of the Maldives, and is one of the first-ever to be formally described by a Maldivian researcher. Ahmed Najeeb from the Maldives Marine Research Institute collaborated with scientists from the California Academy of Sciences, the University of Sydney, and Chicago’s Field Museum. WHAT IS THE MEANING BEHIND THE SCIENTIFIC NAME? The species name ‘finifenmaa’ is derived from the local Dhivehi language and means…

IT’S ALL VERY WELL SQUEEZING THE LIVING breath out of your victims before swallowing them whole, but how does a boa or python avoid asphyxiating itself in the process? New research published in the Journal of Experimental Biology shows that boa constrictors can use certain sections of their rib cage to inflate their lungs while simultaneously using other sections to squeeze their prey to death. Meanwhile, the deepest sections of their long, thin lungs, though not good at absorbing oxygen, work like bellows to pull air through the constricted regions. This ability to control ribs independently is so essential to boas that it might have been in place before constriction could evolve as a predatory strategy. “It could have been in response to the ability to breathe in confined spaces,”…

SWAMP WALLABIES IMAGINE BEING PREGNANT FOR YOUR entire adult life. That’s the reality for the swamp wallaby – a stocky member of the kangaroo family with a unique talent for maximising her reproductive capacity. Life in the Australian outback is tough. Temperatures can be lethal and rainfall sporadic, making food sources unpredictable for vegetarians such as wallabies and kangaroos. Evolution has equipped these marsupials with some fiendish adaptations to cope with the stress of daily life. Hopping for a living doesn’t just look like fun, it’s also the most energetically effective means of travelling long distances in search of dinner. The secret is an oversized tendon in their hind legs that acts like a spring, storing elastic energy from the downward force of gravity and body mass, which then propels…

I’M LOOKING DOWN at giants – a beech tree avenue that is at least 180 years old. The lime green leaves have created a spectacular show, and clusters of bluebells add a seasonal splash of colour. I can just make out the sound of faint tapping and out of the corner of my eye I see a great spotted woodpecker. As I make my way down the steep hillside, a speckled wood butterfly glides in front of me and I catch the excited sounds of a group of children pond-dipping for newts and toads. Suddenly, the stillness of the spring morning is broken by a train making its way from Bristol to London. I’m wandering the one-mile trail at Bath City Farm and it’s a real wildlife treat. One of…

SPRING Cuckooflower Cardamine pratensis Flowering from April to May, this is a pretty, moisture-loving perennial with lilac blooms. It is also a caterpillar foodplant (see p64). Attracts: orange-tip and greenveined white English bluebell Hyacinthoides non-scripta Flowering from April to May, English bluebell has drooped stems of lilac flowers and a delicate fragrance. Attracts: brimstone and orange-tip Primrose Primula vulgaris An early source of nectar, flowering from March. It’s also a larval foodplant of the Duke of Burgundy butterfly. Attracts: brimstone, small tortoiseshell and peacock Dandelion Taraxacum officinale Often regarded as a weed, but as it flowers from March to autumn it is a good early source of nectar when little else is in flower. Attracts: brimstone, orange-tip and small tortoiseshell SUMMER Buddleia Buddleja davidii Flowers from mid to late summer.…

Complements the BBC One series Dynasties II, available now on iPlayer “THERE’S ONE, 10 O’CLOCK!” MY HEARING WAS still muffled following an exuberant takeoff from the Mongu helipad by Rachele, my Italian pilot, yet her proclamation pierced the whirring blades like the shrill tone of a morning alarm. “Have you got it?” I had barely raised the camera from my lap when she had managed to pull the equivalent of a handbrake turn, spinning the helicopter 180º on its nose and pointing me directly at the slow, loping target below. And there it was, a full-blown example of what I had come all this way to see: Crocuta crocuta – the oft-unloved but utterly compelling spotted hyena. For the previous five minutes, I had moderately cursed my decision to request…

You can stream the new landmark documentary on BBC iPlayer Catch up on BBC iPlayer DAVID ATTENBOROUGH PRESENTS THIS landmark documentary that brings the last day of the dinosaurs to life in detail. The 90-minute film reveals what happened when an asteroid the size of Mount Everest hit the planet 66 million years ago. The story is centred not on the impact site, the Chicxulub crater in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, but instead on a little-known spot in the Hell Creek Formation in North Dakota. It’s there that palaeontologist Robert DePalma and his team made a remarkable discovery in a prehistoric graveyard named Tanis. What they found were astonishingly well-preserved fossilised creatures, buried in a mysterious crumbly layer of rock. It is full of ejected material formed by the asteroid’s impact…

WITH BBC WILDLIFE PICTURE EDITOR TOM GILKS How did you get into photography? I have always loved wildlife. When I was 18, I went on safari to Kenya and a guy in my Jeep had all this great gear – I just had a little point-and-shoot camera. I bought some equipment and haven’t looked back. Which shot is most important to you? An image of a red deer stag that I took in my old film days. It was awarded in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which meant a lot. What’s your biggest ‘oh drat it’ moment? I’ve always wanted to photograph a blackthroated diver. It is rare in the UK and sensitive to disturbance, so I planned a trip to Sweden, where it is more common. I…

ACROSS 1 Reedbed songbird that is occasionally seen in the UK (7,7) 10 Willow (5) 11 Small feather that is found behind the eye of a bird (3,6) 12 Long-bodied predatory fish found in the North Pacific (4,3) 13 Lowest marine layer that is home to sponges and echinoderms (4,3) 14 Freswater fish related to the salmon (5) 16 Term for an insect such as a mantidfly, lacewing and antlion (3-6) 19 Scientists who study plants (9) 20 Barrel-shaped marine invertebrates (5) 22 Reptile endemic to New Zealand (7) 25 Flew like a hunting peregrine (7) 27 Of a duck, moulting (2,7) 28 Striped big cat (5) 29 Tufted Mediterranean plant with the name Lagurus ovatus (5-4,5) DOWN 2 Plant in the genus Isoetes (9) 3 Eagle’s nest (5) 4…

I’VE BEEN A READER OF BBC WILDLIFE FOR many years and continue to enjoy the wide variety of articles presented. I also find that I’m still continually finding out new information and ideas about the natural world. I normally pass the magazines on to an old friend, but I have now started sharing BBC Wildlife with my young grandson. He’s beginning to identify many different species and we decided to make a collage of some of his favourite wildlife pictures. I’m hoping that most of them will still be around when he reaches adulthood, but in the meantime, it’s wonderful for him to admire the pictures and for me to discuss the different animals with him. It’s never too early to begin an appreciation of the natural world and all…