Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i BBC Wildlife Magazine

SOME BEES ARE NOT WHAT THEY AT first appear. A cuckoo bumblebee, as its name suggests, takes over the nests of other bumblebees. Using a mix of violence and pheromone inducement, the intruder forces the colony’s workers to raise her young instead. The cuckoo has a larger, more powerful sting and usually, though not always, kills the original host queen. It sounds brutal, but we should not be surprised; most social insects have parasites, after all. In Britain and Ireland, there are six species of cuckoo bumblebee, which often resemble their hosts, but fly with a deeper hum. They differ from social bumblebees in several key respects. For a start, there are only males and females, but no queens or workers. The females lack pollen baskets on their hind legs,…

SOME WILDFLOWERS ARE MERELY GOOD for bees, while others are brilliant. Ground ivy is in the latter group. This bee magnet reliably attracts a wide variety of species during its spring flowering season, from March to May. In fact, you can often hear the plant before you can see it! The purplish-blue flowers are not particularly showy, but their plentiful nectar clearly goes down a treat. Ground ivy isn’t related to ivy, nor does it look like ivy, though it does have evergreen leaves and a rambling, sprawling habit. It spreads vigorously using underground rhizomes, often forming a carpet over the woodland floor, along hedges or banks, or on short grassland. If you rub the furry, kidney-shaped leaves, they give off a pleasantly sage-like smell. When dried, they make a…

As a biologist in the emblematic Iguaçu National Park in 2000, Marcelo Oliveira worked on large carnivore research and conservation. He says, “Since then, I have been involved in numerous projects that have propelled my career into more strategic actions for the conservation of habitats and species.” Oliveira co-authored a recent WWF study, which analysed threats to jaguars and their populations across 447 Brazilian Amazon priority areas (PAs), including 330 indigenous reserves. “PAs are formally recognised for the purpose of promoting biodiversity conservation,” says Marcelo. “Their main goal is to prevent threats from occurring in these territories or, in the case of areas of sustainable use, to promote the sustainable use of natural resources.” “We discovered that the areas that are critically important for jaguars are precisely the most threatened…

TWO AMERICAN HERRING GULLS HAVE recently made landfall in Britain, with one visiting Cornwall’s Hayle Estuary intermittently during February, followed by another just days later at Stornoway harbour in the Outer Hebrides. Formerly considered conspecific with our own European herring gull, it’s now widely recognised as a separate species. As we know from the sighting of a kelp gull in Cambridgeshire last year (Lost and Found, October 2022), large gull taxonomy and identification tends to be complex, and vagrant gulls may be easily overlooked or misidentified. Large gulls typically take four years to reach maturity and most adult American herring gulls are considered indistinguishable from their European counterparts. First year birds, on the other hand, can be distinctive to the trained eye, with their dark patterning, uniformly brown underparts and…

THE TERM ‘PACK OF STOATS’ REFERS LESS to the notion of stoats as a menacing mob, and more to the simple fact that stoats collect in a family group in which there can be as many as 12 in a litter. The stoat’s black tail-tip distinguishes it from a weasel – which shares the same collective noun: ‘pack’. Other words that can be used to describe a group of stoats include ‘caravan’, ‘gang’ and ‘trip’. Living World: Lindsey Chapman on stoats in a Carthusian Priory…

Tweet of the Day: David Attenborough presents the pied flycatcher PIED FLYCATCHERS RETURN TO THE UK in April, after a winter spent in the tropical jungles of West Africa. They are swapping one rainforest for another, because the wonderful old oak woods where they love to nest are relics of the temperate rainforest that once covered much of northern and western Britain. Until mid-May, these damp, mossy, fern-rich woods will be alive with birdsong. But the flycatchers’ own performance is subtle – a lilting, somewhat mournful tune of about five simple notes, sung over and over. When the flycatchers have found mates, they fall silent to concentrate on raising a family. But some males secretly find time to pair up with a second female nearby, before returning to their original…

THE DAMAGE TO WILDLIFE AND NATURE from the construction of the high-speed rail link HS2 will be much greater than claimed, according to a report published by the Wildlife Trusts. Conservationists have assessed the figures produced by HS2 and say the measurable loss of biodiversity as a result of phases 1 and 2a – London to Crewe – will be nearly five times greater than stated. There’s little disagreement about the area of habitat that will be affected by the line’s construction; it’s the biodiversity value contained within the hedges, grasslands and ponds being lost that’s disputed. The report, HS2 Double Jeopardy, blames the discrepancy partly on HS2’s continued use of an out-of-date metric, created in 2012, that turns information collected in the field into numbers, called No Net Loss…

Email your questions to wildquestions@immediate.co.uk Why do cats stick their tongues out? MEGAN SHERSBY ANSWERS Ever seen a cat take a sniff of something and then look disgusted by it, with its mouth slightly open and perhaps its tongue sticking out? Or a horse with its front lip curled back and its upper teeth comically exposed? In both cases, it’s a behaviour called the Flehman response and it can be found in a wide variety of animal species. It occurs in response to a scent, and the aim is to expose the smell to the vomeronasal or Jacobson’s organ, which acts as a chemical receptor for moisture-bourne odours. Located in the nasal cavity, this organ is found in mammals, amphibians and reptiles. Although it can be found in humans, it…

EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHT Monster at the museum Titanosaur Natural History Museum, until 7th Jan 2024 ONE OF THE LARGEST CREATURES EVER to have walked the earth arrives in London this spring. A cast of the titanosaur (Patagotitan mayorum), makes its European debut in Titanosaur: Life as the Biggest Dinosaur, at the Natural History Museum. The sheer scale of the titanosaur is awe-inspiring. Four times heavier than the museum’s Dippy the diplodocus and 12m longer than Hope the blue whale, the cast barely fits inside its 9m-high gallery. Visitors can walk under the titanosaur, see how they size up next to its femur and even smell prehistoric poo. The exhibition tracks the life of this animal, from its birth out of a football-sized egg, to evidence of a predator that took a…

How did you get into photographing wildlife in the first place? I’ve always wanted this to be my career. I got a degree in environmental studies, took photography classes and read as much as I could. I then had a day job until I could earn enough to be a photographer full time. What’s your biggest achievement? I’ve always chosen to ignore sexism and focus on my goals. But in my 40s I felt a pull to create change. I launched free workshops for teenage girls and a non-profit called Girls Who Click. This little organisation has grown into a sisterhood. Do you have any favourite shots? One is of a mother and baby sloth. Their tree was cut down with them in it, and they miraculously survived with only…

“ON A STINGINGLY COLD DAY, at the teeming grey seal breeding colony at Donna Nook in Lincolnshire, I’m waiting near an immensely pregnant cow seal, hoping to witness my first birth. Throughout my round-Britain journey, researching grey seals’ lives, I’ve had many near misses, turning up as a newborn’s starting to suckle or as great black-backed gulls screech in to tussle over the placenta. A volunteer warden and several other visitors are eagerly waiting, too. Right now, the cow’s lying on her back, stomach like a tumulus. Earlier, she was showing all the signs that she was going into labour – fidgeting, digging with her front flippers, spreading those at the rear – but subsided into sleep instead. “Come on, lass,” urges the warden. “Come on.” A ripple of her…

NICK BAKER Greater bladderwort can snag a passing water flea using highly complex underwater traps P.38 GILLIAN BURKE “It seems our beloved bees are caught up in the interests of a tightly bound UK sugar industry” P.19 MARK CARWARDINE  The conservationist asks why we can’t be more tolerant of living alongside wolves in Europe P.31 LUCY COOKE  “Female choice has had a hand in some of nature’s most extravagant creations” P.29 MIKE DILGER “Each male adder suitor attempts to assert his dominance by driving the other to the ground” P.34…

March and early April, looking for nectar and sex – one wonders how they avoid sensory overload. Their eyes detect movement faster than us, thanks to myriad photoreceptor cells in tiny units called ommatidia, their twin antennae smell the air in stereo peacock butterflies rouse from months of winter torpor in and their tactile legs are more sensitive than our fingertips.…

AFTER MANY YEARS OF CAMPAIGNING BY UK and international environmental groups, the use of lead gunshot by hunters in wetlands across all 27 EU countries has been banned. Campaigners believe the ban will save the lives of an estimated one million wetland birds that currently die from lead poisoning in the EU every year. Julia Newth of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust says, “This EU law is a huge leap towards ending lead ammunition poisoning of wildlife in Europe. There is no safe level of lead – it has polluted wetlands for more than a century, creating a toxic environment.” Wetland birds are particularly susceptible as they ingest discarded lead shot while feeding, mistaking pellets of gunshot for the grit they use to help grind up their food. The European…

Tweet of the Day: activist Satish Kumar on his love of blackbirds in Devon One of the great joys of spring’s golden hour around sunrise and sunset is the mellifluous, supremely relaxed fluting of male blackbirds coming from high branches and rooftops. So close your eyes, tune in to the birdsong and feel your spirits lift. As nature writer and former BBC Wildlife columnist Richard Mabey once said: “It would be nice to believe the blackbirds enjoy it, too.”…

Adored by cat fans and famous for its grumpy demeanour, the Pallas’s cat is a small, stocky wildcat with super-dense fur. “Its food consists primarily of pika, a small lagomorph related to rabbits, and other small mammals,” says Tracie Seimon of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Zoological Health Program. “Its diet can be identified through DNA analysis of its scat.” Genetic evidence from its scat has also recently provided the first evidence for the species in Sagarmatha National Park, in the Mount Everest region.…

Listen to Antonia’s Costing the Earth episode, The World’s Toughest Conservationists IT FELT LIKE WE had driven off the end of the earth, our existence made inconsequential by the vastness of the surrounding mountains. On all sides rose the ramparts of the Southern Alichur Range, the sinking sun caught on their needle-like peaks. At 4,300m altitude and -30˚c, the air felt like cut diamonds. “Fresh snow leopard tracks!” exclaimed my guide, Mahan, kneeling at his spotting scope. A few hundred metres ahead of us a single set of tracks wound up a snowy slope. But it was too cold to stay here any longer. We had to turn back. The ghost cat had eluded me, yet again. There are few mammals that capture our imagination more than Panthera uncia, the snow…

Ollie Metcalf first stumbled upon the potential power of sound when surveying birds on windfarms in the UK. So often, his trips would end in frustration. “I’d spend hours surveying without ever seeing much, then miss a load when I wasn’t there,” he recalls. Metcalf knew there had to be a better way. Then, it struck him. Birds communicate with sound, so why not listen rather than watch? “As humans, we are primarily focused on vision, and we think that is how we should perceive the world,” he says. “But birds want to be detected by sound.” This realisation subsequently guided Metcalf through two research degrees, where he used sound to monitor the reintroduction of the hihi bird in New Zealand, and to analyse Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. Metcalf is now…

Are rabbits and hares native to the UK and Ireland? Although we’re all familiar with the European rabbit and the brown hare, neither are actually native to the UK. The former was introduced by the Romans in the first century, whilst the brown hare was introduced in the Iron Age. Both are considered naturalised species – established in the wild with a self-maintaining population. There is one native hare species, though – the mountain hare in Britain, and its subspecies the Irish hare in Ireland. MS Do all female marsupials have pouches? Yes, but not all of them have a pouch permanently. Some female marsupials, such as the three species of phascogales, some quolls and the echidnas, just have a temporary pouch. Sometimes referred to as a pseudo-pouch, its consists…

ACROSS 8 Forelimb bone, in some mammals (4) 9 Wetland on the south coast of Devon, important for wading birds (10) 10 Deciduous tree sometimes called the upside-down tree (6) 11 Arboreal amphibian (4,4) 12 Wild pig (4) 13 Rapid ground cuckoo of Mexico and the south-west USA (10) 17 River whose estuary is home to the Scottish Dolphin Centre (4) 18 Group of fish (5) 19 Old term for a leaf (4) 20 Species of wild onion (4,6) 22 ___ owl, large bird of prey native to Asia and eastern Europe (4) 23 Large rodent of South America (8) 27 Plunging seabird (6) 28 Reddish growth on a grapevine, caused by a species of midge (6,4) 29 Slimy gastropod (4) DOWN 1 Small plant-sucking insect (10) 2 Shrub also…

First of all, you will need to learn how to scuba dive or at least be a confident swimmer. Then you will need to contend with challenging light conditions and changing your settings while wearing scuba gloves! But the rewards are worth it. Here are three top tips from marine photographer Aimee Jan (oceanaimee.com): ● BE CONFIDENT “Things can happen quickly in the water, so make sure you know your camera well in case you need to change the settings suddenly.” ● GET CLOSE “The water is full of particles, so it’s very different to shooting on land, where there isn’t much between your camera lens and the subject.” ● USE NATURAL LIGHT “If the water visibility is low, you really need to have the sun behind you. If you’re…

In Wild Isles, a major new landmark series from BBC One, Sir David Attenborough celebrates the wonders of the islands we call home, revealing the surprising diversity of habitat and wildlife that exists. The British Isles owe this natural wealth to their geology – from chalk to limestone to granite to volcanic basalt – and a climate that ranges from subtropical to Arctic. Using state-of-the-art technology, the five-part series was filmed over three eventful years. Find out what to expect, episode by episode, on page 6, learn how to get involved locally on page 20, and discover what you can do in your own backyard on page 26. Have a wild time!…

ACCORDING TO THE OFFICE FOR NATIONAL Statistics, residential gardens make up nearly 30 per cent of our urban areas and almost five per cent of land use across the UK. With a little thought and a sympathetic approach, even the smallest space can be beneficial to wildlife, particularly in our towns and cities. Provide suitable habitat and the wildlife will come. Even a window box can draw in fascinating pollinating insects, while grass lawns needn’t be manicured like a golf green but can be allowed to flourish like a wildflower meadow. The key is gentle management and balance while also letting be, and choosing plants and flowers that provide food and shelter for wildlife rather than a splash of colour for ourselves. The natural world does not thrive on tidiness…

DRAMATIC AND DYNAMIC, THIS IMAGE OF a sparrowhawk chasing a jay certainly fulfilled the brief of the Nature in Action Photography Competition from the Society of International Nature and Wildlife Photographers – indeed, it won first prize. With fantastic manoeuvrability and an ability to reach 50kph in short bursts, sparrowhawks are well-adapted to hunting other birds. Usually only small songbirds are taken, but the much larger female sparrowhawk (pictured) will target species up to pigeon size – or jay size, in this instance! There is a common misconception that sparrowhawks can cause a decline in bird populations. However, only the most prevalent birds are preyed on, and even then, usually those that are old, weak or injured. After a few speedy laps of the wooden pole, this plucky jay managed…

NEW DATA REINFORCES THE IDEA OF a recent downward trend for unprovoked shark attacks following decades of incremental rise. The International Shark Attack File (ISAF), collated by the Florida Museum, reveals 57 unprovoked bites in 2022, of which five were fatal. This is below the 10-year average of 74. “Over the past four or five years, the numbers do seem to be tilting downwards, but it’s not enough to be statistically significant,” says ISAF program director Gavin Naylor. “If it’s correct, a very obvious reason is that there are fewer sharks in the water,” he continues. “We know from fishing and by-catch statistics that the number of most species of sharks has dropped precipitously over the past 40 or 50 years.” Indeed, a study published in the journal Nature in…

CENTIPEDES ARE THE ONLY ANIMALS TO have transformed legs into venom-injecting fangs. Called forcipules, they likely arose from centipedes’ technique of grappling prey with their front legs. These developed a groove along their length for the delivery of venom from a gland at the base to the tip, and a cutting inner edge for butchering. This transformation has played a significant part in centipedes’ formidable predatory prowess. Living World: in search of centipedes and millipedes in Oxfordshire…

1 RED-LIPPED BATFISH Has a pouting mouth and spindly ‘legs’ 2 BLOBFISH Can be found at a depth of 1,200m 3 IRRAWADDY DOLPHIN Cetacean with a ‘happy’ face 4 LOWLAND STREAKED TENREC Has sharp spines to deter predators 5 NAKED MOLE RAT Long-lived rodent that lives in burrows 6 SAIGA ANTELOPE Has a bulbous nose that warms up frigid air as well as filtering out dust 7 ATRETOCHOANA EISELTI Called the penis snake by some, it is not actually a snake but a caecilian 8 SEA PIG (Scotoplanes genus) A genus of sea cucumbers that look like something out of Doctor Who 9 POTOO (Nyctibiidae family) Group of birds found in the forests of Central and South America 10 FLORIDA SOFTSHELL TURTLE Snorkel-like nose and long neck…

SMEAR ON SUN CREAM, THEN LOOK AT your reflection. If there’s a blob on your nose, you’ll likely see it and rub it in. Doing this reveals a lot about your awareness of self. Like humans, some animals can recognise themselves in mirrors, suggesting real self-awareness. A team from Osaka Metropolitan University, led by Masonori Kohda, has been using photographs to record different aspects of cleaner fish (Labroides dimidiatus) reactions to images of themselves and other cleaner fish. Shown a photograph where a parasite-like mark had been added to their throat, most of the cleaner fish then tried to rub their throats to remove the mark. “This study is the first to demonstrate that fish have an internal sense of self,” says Kohda. “Since the target animal is a fish,…

CELEBRATED AND FEARED IN EQUAL measure, there is something both undeniably thrilling and a tiny bit scary about an encounter with our only venomous snake. Shy and retiring by nature, yet rich in folklore, the adder is hardly deserving of a villainous reputation, and due to the usual suspects of habitat loss and agricultural intensification has declined across large swathes of the British countryside. The adder’s name is believed to originate from a mispronunciation of the Old English word of nædre, meaning serpent. And despite struggling in modern Britain, the snake’s tolerance of low temperatures has nevertheless seen it able to colonise woodland edges, heathlands and moorlands right across temperate Europe and Asia, even including a foothold within the Arctic Circle. When encountered for the first time, perhaps the most…

School of thought This female Tyrannochromis, shepherding her tiny fry, represents just one of perhaps 1,000 endemic cichlid species in Lake Malawi. In this 580km-long freshwater lake in East Africa, new species have evolved at an astonishing rate over the past million years or so. Photographer Michael Patrick O’Neill documented its biodiversity and the lives of the people who eke out a living from its waters. Island life Likoma, the larger of the two main (though still small) Malawian islands in the lake, is home to scattered communities of largely subsistence fishers. The shore alongside this village on Likoma is striped with long racks where endemic Lake Malawi sardines, known locally as usipa, are spread to dry. These endemic finger-sized fish are a major source of protein. Net gains and…

THE FOREST OF DAY IS A MISTAKE. IT LIES IN DJIBOUTI, a hot desert country in the Horn of Africa, where temperatures can rise into the 40s and where the landscape is made of volcanic rock. The vast majority of Djibouti is a dustbowl. But when its landscape formed millions of years ago and tectonic plates collided, part of it was thrust so high into the air that it penetrated a cooler airstream. Reaching over 2,000m high, Djibouti’s mountaintops are the exception to its desert climate. Its peaks are bathed in wet clouds, allowing for a forest to grow. Here, there are evergreen trees, such as olives and junipers, many animals, including leopards and antelopes, and a vanishingly rare bird known as the Djibouti spurfowl. The forest is called the…

WHEN FACED WITH A THREAT, most animals can defend themselves or run away – fight or flight. Both actions are potentially reckless because they involve movement, which would reveal a prey’s position to nearby predators, so many creatures will freeze first. But contrary to popular belief, that behaviour isn’t driven by being too frightened to move. What’s fight-or-flight? It’s a response to acute (short-term) stress triggered by a threat to survival, typically a predator, and prepares the body for immediate fighting or fleeing. Fight-or-flight is best understood in mammals. The brain sends signals telling the adrenal glands to secrete hormones such as epinephrine (popularly known as adrenaline) to cause changes to physiology, such as making the heart pump harder so the blood delivers oxygen and fuel faster. Epinephrine prompts the…

CUCUMBER SPIDER Common. Spins webs in hedges or at woodland edges, camouflaged by its pea-green abdomen. Female is 6mm. GREEN HUNTSMAN Scarce. Ground predator in southern woods. Female is green; male has red-and-yellow abdomen. Grows to 15mm. PALE CRAB SPIDER Common. Sit-and-wait predator that hides in flowers. Can be yellow, white or pink. Female is rounded and 1cm.…

PRIZE-WINNING PHOTO Lunch on the fly I didn’t have my camera with me when this barn owl turned up unexpectedly in a creek in Chichester Harbour, but fortunately the bird stayed for a few days, allowing me to get several shots, including this one where it had just caught a vole. It is unusual to see a barn owl out on the wing during daylight hours. Their flight is relatively slow so I could easily capture an image as he flew past. Bob Brewer, Chichester Bat attack I spotted this long-eared bat out during the midday sun in Epping Forest near London. It was constantly diving and drinking from a small pond. Unfortunately, a group of magpies spotted it and the next time it roosted, one of them seized it.…

MY NAME IS JAMIE AND I AM 13 years old. This year, I watched Winterwatch and I learned so much. I am in awe of people like Chris, Michaela, Iolo, Megan and all the brilliant cameramen and women, and those who work tirelessly behind the scenes to show us the best of the seasons. I look up to them as heroes. When I learned that Autumnwatch was being taken from the programming schedule, I penned this letter and sent it to the BBC: Dear Sirs at the BBC,You think that pictures on the boxare all I see.Flashes of colour, pictures and sound,Yet there is a world beyond to be found.Yet you fail to realise the connectionyou make,Love and passion inside us you can wake. Peanuts hanging, a real feast for…

Catch up with all five episodes of the new BBC One Wild Isles TV series, plus a 50-minute Saving Our Wild Isles special on BBC iPlayer VAST SNOW-CAPPED MOUNTAIN ranges. Sweeping beaches of white sand. Herds of wild horses galloping across wide grasslands. Orcas seizing seals, golden eagles chasing hares, and white-tailed eagles learning to hunt a new kind of prey. The epic scale of Sir David Attenborough’s new natural history blockbuster on BBC One indicates that this is another globe-trotting adventure. But Wild Isles may be the most unique and unusual series the 96-year-old has ever made: it is completely based in the British Isles. In the first of five programmes, Sir David introduces us to the wildlife of the archipelago that is Britain, Ireland and more than 6,000…