Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2023 i BBC Wildlife Magazine

DOLPHINS ARE WELL KNOWN FOR THEIR playfulness, coming together in pods large and small to lark about among the waves. Such behaviour can be observed in many species of dolphin around the world, but if you want to see some truly daring surfing action, check out the bottlenose dolphins of Laguna Madre, off the coast of Texas, USA. The marine mammals seem to have no fear of the massive supertankers making their way into and out of the Port of Corpus Christi, some of which measure over 300m long and 60m wide. On the contrary, the dolphins appear to use the tankers as their playthings, taking advantage of the waves they create with their enormous bows to hitch a ride. Scientists can’t explain exactly why dolphins surf, but the general…

DESPITE SOME MODEST PROGRESS, wildlife groups have expressed their deep disappointment at the outcome of COP27 (the 27th Conference of the Parties), the United Nations climate change conference that concluded on 18th November in Egypt. It was hoped that this year’s COP would significantly build on the global agreement reached at last year’s COP26, held in Glasgow. “By failing to deliver progress on cutting (greenhouse gas) emissions and phasing out fossil fuels, governments have failed to reach a more ambitious agreement than in Glasgow and put our health and security at risk,” says Katie White from WWF. On the plus side, groups welcomed this year’s final summary of COP negotiations, which for the first time included references to biodiversity and nature-based solutions in tackling climate change. Nature-based solutions refers to…

WEBBED TOES ARE GREAT FOR propulsion in water, but as anyone who has tried walking in flippers knows, they are not built for elegance on land. A coot’s ‘lobate’ foot is an exquisitely engineered solution to unfettered locomotion in both worlds. Each toe sports hinged flaps that increase the foot’s surface area for swimming but can fold back out of the way when not in use on land.…

CHRISTOPH GRUETER IS PARTICULARLY interested in social insects. He studied zoology at the University of Bern, Switzerland and did his PhD at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the University of Bern. “Living in a society has its own challenges and I am fascinated by the many different ways that social insects have found to address these challenges – this includes communication, division of labour or collective defence,” says Christoph. “Understanding their behaviour is often necessary to understand the roles that ants or bees play in their and our world as pollinators of plants or predators of arthropods, for example.” His latest study, conducted with master’s student Lucy Hayes, found that social bees have much larger foraging ranges than solitary bees, which is not down to one factor, but…

UNUSUALLY SUSTAINED SOUTHERLY WINDS originating in Iberia, northwest Africa and the Canaries brought many rare migrant moths and birds to the UK from these regions during late October into early November 2022. Pallid swifts arrived in unprecedented numbers and with them were two alpine accentors. This montane species is a well-known close relative of the slightly smaller dunnock with which it shares a complex mating system known as polygyandry (both sexes have multiple mating partners). It is not normally a long-distance migrant but usually moves shorter distances from high altitudes in summer to lowlands in winter, seeking out more easily available food sources. The alpine accentor occurs from the mountains of Iberia and Morocco east to Japan, with odd lost birds turning up regularly in places like the Mediterranean and,…

BEACHCOMBING CAN BE A FRUITFUL AND mindful pastime at any time of year, but it’s in winter that the sea gives up many of its treasures. Among them are the skeletal remains of ancient invertebrates that have been on Earth for 540 million years – sea urchins. Several species, including green and common (edible) sea urchins, occur on British coasts. Their shell-like cases, called tests, are made mainly of calcium, arranged in plates to form a squashed sphere reminiscent of a satsuma. In life, sea urchins are covered in spines like marine hedgehogs – Echinus, the genus to which they belong, comes from the Greek word for hedgehog – but these are lost when they die. Little white bumps cover the tests that wash up on shores, showing where the…

THERE’S NO NEED TO SEND ANOTHER World Health Organization mission to China. The last time we did that (to unearth the source of Covid-19) the Chinese authorities delayed and censored the inquiry. Besides, this time we know the origin of bird flu: the strain currently running amok on four continents originated in intensive poultry farms in southern China. Bird flu is a contagious disease caused by a virus loosely related to human influenza. As with other viruses, it evolves rapidly into different strains. Most cause little or no harm in infected wild birds, but the latest strain is far more deadly. Last summer, we experienced the worst outbreak of avian flu ever witnessed in the UK, with countless thousands of birds dropping dead around the country. Overall, more than 60…

The broadcaster, naturalist and tour guide shares the most breathtaking seasonal events in Britain WITH SPRING ON THE VERGE OF sticking its head above the wintry parapet, naturalists often adopt different signposts to herald the season’s arrival according to their own specialist interests. Birdwatchers, for example, will be listening out for their first chiffchaff, while botanists will be scouring the hedgebanks for early flowering violets. Those with a penchant for invertebrates, however, will only acknowledge spring to have officially sprung once they’ve spotted the season’s first butterflies and bumblebees on the wing – having freshly emerged from their winter slumber. Of course, winter itself is not an invertebrate-free zone, as evidenced by winter gnats and a few hardy moths, for example. But the cold temperatures and lack of feeding opportunities…

THE REINTRODUCTION OF TWO rhinos to Imvelo Ngamo Wildlife Sanctuary marks the first step in an ambitious and exciting journey for The Community Rhino Conservation Initiative (CRCI). The plan is to have a patchwork of small sanctuaries around the Tsholotsho Communal Lands that will eventually form one much larger conservancy on the southern borders of Hwange National Park that would be home to a breeding herd of 30-50 rhinos. For the first time, CRCI will create a fenced buffer zone to reduce human-wildlife conflict. Farmers will voluntarily give up cattle-grazing land, but will benefit from tourist income, sanctuary entry fees and employment. None of this would be possible without the consent of the communities. Over the years, they’ve received healthcare and education benefits from tourism operators, but giving up land…

LEMURS ARE IN TROUBLE. OF the 113 described species and subspecies of lemur – all of which live exclusively in the forests of Madagascar – 98 per cent are threatened with extinction. It’s a bleak statistic, but a helpful one. Because it’s only by being armed with this knowledge about the conservation status of lemurs that we can begin to address the challenges they face. We have this information at our fingertips thanks to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), whose Red List of Threatened Species offers the world’s most comprehensive overview of the conservation status of animals, fungi and plants. There are other lists of threatened species out there: national and regional lists used to guide government policy; and lists focusing on particular groups of animals or…

WHERE DO ORGANISMS LIVE? Habitat, ecosystem, niche and environment are used interchangeably in everyday speech, but these terms have distinct meanings. So put on your most pedantic voice and say “Actually, I think you’ll find…” because you’re about to learn how to be technically correct – the best kind of correct. What’s the difference between a habitat and an ecosystem? A habitat is a geographic location, an ecosystem is a set of interactions among species – including who eats whom in a food-chain – and between the living and non-living parts of nature. Exactly where a species lives isn’t especially relevant to the concept of ecosystems. Habitats have boundaries that animals can cross, during migration, say. They’re physical places, and living things aren’t typically considered ‘part’ of the location… although…

PRIZE-WINNING PHOTO Two of a kind I was searching for Ural owl nests in Făget, a forest near my hometown, when I spotted these chicks. To photograph them, I climbed a tree with a telephoto lens, far enough away not to disturb them and the one parent that was nearby. It was a very nice experience to visit the nest from time to time and see the chicks grow up and eventually leave the nest. This photo has brought me a lot of joy. Gligor Andrei Lazar, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Stop sign This langur baby, photographed in Jhalana Leopard Safari Park in Rajasthan, seems to be signalling to humanity to stop the rapid urbanisation that is causing an increase in human-animal conflicts across India. Shabeer Thurakkal, Kerala, India Evening star Out on my…

“NIGHTJARS ARE CREATURES OF darkness, elusive and slightly spooky. Some European countries still refer to them as goatsuckers because they are often found near livestock and were once believed to use their wide mouths to milk goats. Such folklore made me long to see one myself. It was the final weekend of July when I drove to the New Forest and turned onto a long gravel track that eventually entered the treeline through a gap like a mouse hole. The world got darker. Raised banks on either side were covered with untrampled ferns interrupted by outcrops of limestone painted with yellow lichen, and beyond were endless rows of moss-clung trunks. The track wound down to reveal a cottage framed by forest and set at the heart of Franchises Lodge nature…

PUNK-CRESTED WAXWINGS ARE AMONG THE showiest birds of winter, with dusty pink plumage offset by a neat bandit mask. The name comes from the curious little red blobs on the tips of some of their secondary wing feathers, which resemble the sealing wax of old. No-one knows what function these might have, though they might play a part in courtship. Despite their exotic looks, however, waxwings are most likely to be confused with starlings, which are a similar size and likewise seen in flocks. The similarity is most striking in flight. Waxwings breed in Scandinavia and Siberia, only reaching the UK in significant numbers when the berry crop fails across their home range. In these so-called ‘invasion’ years, or irruptions, hungry flocks hundreds-strong arrive in northern and eastern counties. During…

Nature’s Great Invaders features the grey squirrel GREY SQUIRRELS: DO YOU LOVE THEM OR loathe them? In 2021, a Royal Forestry Society study worked out that these alien acrobats from North America cost an eyewatering £37 million every year in England and Wales alone, in terms of the cost of controlling them and the damage they do to timber, together with the associated loss of carbon storage the lost trees would have provided. That’s before one considers their impact on our native red squirrels. And yet. Grey squirrels probably bring more joy to more people than any other wild mammal in Britain. In January and February, you’ll often hear what appear to be squirrels sneezing. These nasal, ‘muk muk’ calls are a feature of the grey squirrel breeding season, as…

NatureBang What can an octopus teach us? SOME ANIMALS ARE MADE FOR COMMUNAL living, but octopuses aren’t among them. Australia’s gloomy octopuses are solitary animals by inclination. And yet in Jervis Bay, drawn by a plentiful supply of scallops, they pack themselves together like sardines. And new research shows they have come up with a novel way of enforcing personal space. “The sand at Jervis Bay is too fine and silty to support a stable den,” says Peter Godfrey-Smith, a professor who led the research from the University of Sydney in Australia. “But the empty scallop shells provide a much better building material. The more octopuses that move in, the more shells there are for building dens.” But den construction is not all they do with the shells. They also…

When surveying for bats, droppings are a key indication of presence. Although there can be subtle differences between species, sometimes DNA analysis is required, which is the case when trying to tell apart brown long-eared bat and grey long-eared bat droppings. Claire Boothby, Bats in Churches Project training and survey officer, says, “The grey long-eared bat is one of the rarest mammals in Britain with a populaton estimated to be as low as 1,000 individuals, so every new roost we find is of importance.”…

Listen to One Planet ‛Non-native species and shark-fin soup’ CONSERVATIONISTS ARE CELEBRATING a landmark ruling at a major wildlife summit that, for the first time, will regulate the global trade in shark fins, driven by the insatiable appetite for shark-fin soup. The unsustainable trade in shark fins results in the deaths of millions of sharks every year and is pushing many species to the edge of extinction. The historic decision was taken at the recent meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), held in Panama City in November last year. The CITES COP19 (19th conference of the parties)summit voted to limit or regulate the commercial trade in 54 shark species in the requiem family of sharks. This includes the tiger, bull…

THE ROOM WHERE JORGE Palma and his team are trying to save seahorses is small, chilly and dark. It’s lit by cold neon tubes, the smell of salt hangs in the air, and pumps hum constantly. Palma, a marine biologist, stands in front of a series of aquariums housing about two dozen seahorses. Like children reaching for their parents’ hands, they wrap their delicate tails around the tufts of seagrass that gently sway in the water. This is humankind’s possibly futile attempt to save what it has been destroying for decades. Palma’s ‘office’ is the Ramalhete Field Station in the Ria Formosa, on the Algarve, off the southern coast of Portugal. This wide lagoon system was once home to the world’s densest population of short- and long-snouted seahorses, with 1.5-2…

THERE IS A BRIDGE BANG IN the centre of Manchester, just off Princess Street. If you look over it down into the River Medlock, you’ll see a 2kg wild brown trout. Or so Shaun Leonard, director of the Wild Trout Trust, told me as he shared a grainy video clip from a member. He thought there might be a story in it. “Yeah, right,” I thought, sceptical of finding trout in such a location, let alone a monster of 2kg. But, as I leaned over and peered beneath the gloom of a gastro-pub veranda, my ears thrumbing to the thunder of traffic, I saw a shadowy slab of muscle that was this bruiser of a wild trout, not to mention three tiddlers alongside it. Perhaps Shaun had a point. The…

BOOK HIGHLIGHT OF THE MONTH Walking on top of the world Caribou By Mark Raycroft & Pili Palm-Leis Firefly Books, £20 TAKE A TRIP TO THE TUNDRA AND boreal forests of North America and discover the world of the caribou in this beautiful book by author and photographer Mark Raycroft and author Pili Palm-Leis. Many of us know these mammals as reindeer, but in North America, they’re known as caribou. The book contains 140 stunning images, taken across a range of seasons and habitats, which are accompanied by text from both Mark and Pili. Mark recounts his experiences spent tracking and photographing caribou amongst the wild landscapes. Pili provides factual text covering their range, ecology and behaviour, including the challenges they face and how they are perfectly adapted to living in the…

ATUL SINGH HAS BEEN TRACKING TIGERS FOR over 30 years and currently leads a team of 10-12 community-based Bagh Mitras in Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, India. Roughly translating as ‘tiger friends’, Bagh Mitras are volunteers who spend their time helping reduce human-tiger conflict. Why do you volunteer? During my childhood, we would go into the beautiful forests of the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve with my grandfather and watch tigers. He was the first private tiger-hunter in this area – the man the Forest Department called whenever there was a “man-eating” tiger on the loose. Thanks to him, I grew a great connection to the forests here, but as I became older, I began to wonder how we could save the tigers. Pilibhit is a very long, narrow reserve, with a relatively high…

Why focus on the small creatures rather than the big ones? Small creatures are always overlooked, yet play a vital role in the environment. Without them our ecosystems would collapse. What macro species is the most challenging to photograph? Spiders, because they are frequently moving. Under high magnification, the smallest movement causes blur, so you have to wait for the spider to stand still. What’s your biggest ‘Oh drat it!’ moment to date? I was on a four-day shoot in Kaziranga National Park and I didn’t realise my camera was set to ‘Jpeg basic’ mode. My photos were completely un-printable and couldn’t be entered in any contests. What is the hardest thing about macro photography in the field? For me, working in India, it’s the heat and humidity. Drops of…

THESE LAST FEW YEARS HAVE BEEN eye-opening in various ways to us all, but something that has definitely come out of it for me is the power of my back garden to lift the spirits. There is nothing better than exploring a corner that hasn’t been weeded in a while, or visiting my log pile to see what lurks there. But there is one area that everyone avoids. To best explain, I wrote a poem about it, which I would love to share with you… At the end of my garden there’s a spikyplant. No one goes near it,partly due to the needle-like leaves,partly because it’s in the dark shady bit,under the trees. What an unsightly thingfrom bottom to top it goes from bare,leathery barkto the caracasses of last year’s…

NICK BAKER Learn about the beetle larvae that dare to scavenge scraps from spider webs P.40 GILLIAN BURKE Our regular columnist on new research into the impact of humans on animal behaviour P.19 MARK CARWARDINE “The strain of bird flu running amok on four continents originated in intensive poultry farms in China” P.33 LUCY COOKE The working lemur mums sharing the parenting load with communal crèches for multiple litters P.29 MIKE DILGER Some butterflies and bumblebees overwinter in adult form, emerging in February P.36…

THE SEI WHALE IS THE THIRD-LARGEST marine mammal, but its calls are seldom heard. Protected since 1970 following decades of whaling, sei whale numbers are increasing, with waters around the Falkland Islands a uniquely large gathering area in spring and autumn. To learn more about their population recovery and why sei whales like these waters so much, Falklands Conservation and the African Aquatic Conservation Fund backed a long-term study, now reported in the journal Royal Society Open Science. For this, researchers Salvatore Cerchio and Caroline Weir analysed a huge dataset collected from continuous sound recordings made from the seabed. At first, the team was baffled by the ‘other-worldly’ noises they heard, but deeper analysis revealed organised and repeated sei whale phrases. The sounds are very different to the rich and…

Mya-Rose Craig presents the white-tailed eagle on Tweet of the Day They may be our largest raptors, with a vast ‘barn door’ silhouette in the air, but white-tailed eagles are not above scavenging, especially in winter. Young birds couldn’t survive without carrion and often find it by following groups of crows, buzzards or red kites. Sadly, feeding from bird carcasses puts them at risk of avian influenza (bird flu) and several of these mighty eagles have succumbed. 10 smallest birds Birds vary enormously in size. Here are the world’s very smallest by length. 1 BEE HUMMINGBIRD 5.5cm, 1.95g The smallest bird in the world weighs about the same as a cashew nut 2 ESMERALDAS WOODSTAR 6.4cm, 2g A hummingbird from the Ecuador coast 3 CALLIOPE HUMMINGBIRD 7cm, 2.8g Can you spot a theme here? The smallest native bird of…

THE TERM ‘BALE OF TURTLES’ DERIVES most likely from the shape they take when huddled together in their shells: a bale being a large wrapped or bound bundle typically of paper, hay or cotton. One well-recognised feature of some turtles is their desire to group and team up to stay safe. Their other collective nouns include dule (from the French ‘deuil’ and some think a corruption of ‘bale’) as well as turn, dole and nest.…

HOW DOES A HARD-WORKING ANIMAL mum juggle the demands of a helpless baby with feeding herself and her family? For the black-and-white ruffed lemur, Varecia variegate, the answer is simple: dedicated day care. Lemurs are our most distant primate cousins, and only found on the island of Madagascar where they’ve been evolving in isolation for some 50-60 million years. Endangered black-and-white ruffed lemurs are unusual for primates since they give birth to litters of up to three babies. Most primate mothers manage just one at a time as their big-brained babies take a long time to reach independence, which makes them especially demanding. Varecia variegate females have an innovative solution to the problem: they make like birds and build nests high up in the canopy. These serve as communal creches…

BBC wildlife 60 YEARS Visit discoverwildlife.com/60faves to vote today!…

ALL SEEMS QUIET ON THE ROAD TO BULAWAYO AS we travel across Zimbabwe in the dead of night. At around midnight, our walkie-talkie crackles into life and we hear wildlife manager Colin Wenham’s voice. “There’s noise coming from the crates,” he says. “We need to pull over.” Our convoy of six vehicles and a 20-tonne truck drives slowly into a layby and we park up. It’s late May with winter approaching and under a cloudless sky full of stars, I shiver from the chill in the air. That doesn’t bode well for our cargo. Two crates the size of horseboxes are side by side on our truck, each housing a southern white rhino on route to their new home. Aiming to avoid the heat of the day, we’d left Malilangwe…

Don’t mind if I do The lesser black-backed gulls and herring gulls (juvenile pictured) of Amsterdam know to expect breakfast when residents put their bin bags out in the morning, says David Hup, who spent a year photographing the birds in his native Netherlands: “They tear the bags apart and spread the rubbish all over the street.” Grub’s up When bin lorries arrive at this waste processing centre in Amsterdam, huge flocks of gulls fly down from neighbouring rooftops to ransack the newly arrived rubbish. “It was total mayhem with gulls searching for leftovers,” David says. Feathered friends This child was playing with a herring gull, offering it a chip, but not all human-gull interactions in Dutch cities are so friendly. “The gulls are really territorial and aggressive when they…

Email your questions to wildquestions@immediate.co.uk How did guanacos end up on the Falkland Islands? ALEX LANCASTER ANSWERS: You may have seen the guanacos (the wild ancestor of the llama) and vicuñas of mainland South America on stunning BBC wildlife programmes. But if you happen to visit the Falkland Islands, and specifically Staats Island, part of the Beaver Island Group, you’ll spot not just the native Magellanic penguins, but also guanacos. Why they were originally introduced to the Falklands is unclear, but we know guanacos were brought to East Falkland in the early 1860s, and were even hunted there in 1871. However, this attempt to establish them ultimately failed. Most credit for the later, successful introduction of guanacos is given to Scotsman John Hamilton, who lived in Patagonia in the 1930s.…

Why have you focused on caribou? Mark: After completing my degree in wildlife biology, I became very focused on the large mammals of North America, specifically the family Cervidae (the antlered ungulates). Over the past 25 years, caribou have become my favourite subject to photograph and film. Their ability to survive the significant seasonal swings of the far north, their herd behaviours, and their incredible migrations all peaked my interest in this iconic species. What fieldcraft skills do you need to photograph caribou? Mark: To successfully photograph caribou one must understand their behaviour and also be able to work in the elements of the northern wild. One of my favourite aspects of being a wildlife photographer is the challenge of accurately observing the behaviour of your subject in order to…

ACROSS 1 Grey-backed seabird of the southern hemisphere, Larus dominicanus (4,4) 5 Organ used in defence by octopus (3-3) 10 Hazel ___, nocturnal rodents noted for their long hibernations (7) 11 Aggressive foraging social insect (4,3) 12 Succulent plant of the Americas (5) 13 New World bird related to a fire-eye or bushbird (9) 14 Small, colourful waterbird, introduced to the UK in the 20th century (8,4) 18 Fossil-rich mineral deposit in the Canadian Rockies (7,5) 21 Active period for crepuscular creatures (9) 23 ___ owl, also called an owlet (5) 24 Water flea (7) 25 Caribbean island whose flag features a frigate bird (7) 26 Tropical flowers which also go by the name golden spoons (6) 27 Parasitic insect that causes scabies (4,4) DOWN 1 ___ bear, brown bear…