Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2024 i BBC Wildlife Magazine

DROWSY SUMMER EVENINGS ARE PERFECT FOR watching families of barn owls. The nesting adults have had their work cut out since spring, because the owls have relatively big broods, usually hatching around four young. Each hungry owlet needs two or three field voles every 24 hours to keep it happy (shrews, mice and rats are also on the menu). This means the parents are likely to have been catching as many as a dozen mammals a day between them – plus some for themselves, of course. Flying low over the ground like huge white moths, barn owls rely almost entirely on sound to locate their prey. No one has described their graceful yet lethally effective hunting style better than Robert Macfarlane in his book of poems, The Lost Spells: “Noise…

INSECTS ARE THE ‘CANARIES IN THE coalmine’ when it comes to climate change, because they respond so quickly to environmental change. It’s striking how many new insects from mainland Europe are being reported in Britain – damselflies, bees, crickets, butterflies and more. In addition, many of our existing native species are spreading north. The large and small skippers, comma and marbled white are among the butterflies undergoing dramatic range expansions, almost certainly helped by our changing climate. The marbled white, for example, was once regarded as primarily a species of southern downland, but is now found as far north as Yorkshire. Of course, while it’s exciting to see new species arrive and others doing well, some insects, including many butterflies, are struggling to adapt to changed habitats and weather patterns.…

THE WORLD’S LARGEST HUMMINGBIRD IS not one species, but two, according to a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Giant hummingbirds live in western South America, and while one northern population stays put in the high Andes, another southern population migrates. Initially, researchers just wanted to solve the mystery of where the migratory population travelled to. They attached tiny ‘backpacks’ to the birds to track their movements and uncovered an epic 8,300km round-trip from the Chilean coast to wintering grounds shared with the resident hummingbirds in the high Andes, which involves an impressive 4,000m ascent. “We knew we’d found something really exciting when we learned that Chilean birds migrate to the high Andes of Peru,” says lead author Jessie Williamson, postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell…

SCIENTISTS SAY THEY ARE CLOSE TO being able to genetically modify a rare Australian mammal to save it from becoming extinct as a result of non-native cane toads. The northern quoll, a small carnivorous marsupial, has suffered huge population declines due to habitat loss and introduced species. It used to be widespread across a broad swathe of the northern half of Australia, but today only survives in a few isolated areas in Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland. Cane toads, native to South and Central America, are the quoll’s ultimate nemesis because they possess a neurotoxin to which no Australian species has resistance. Now scientists expert in gene-editing from the University of Melbourne and a ‘de-extinction’ company called Colossal Biosciences say they can introduce genetic resistance to the toxin by…

MATING CAN BE A dangerous game for female common frogs. Once the temperature hits 7°C, they wake from hibernation and head to their nearest wetland to mate. Common frogs breed explosively, transforming ponds into a bobbing orgy of amorous amphibians. The spring air resonates with the low grumbling soundtrack of ardent bachelors, which tend to outnumber females. Hopeful males stay at their breeding site a week or more, while females remain only long enough to lay eggs. Competition is rife and females can easily become overwhelmed by male attention, even drowning in the middle of scrum-like ‘mating balls’. So, evolution has provided the female common frog with a cunning trick to avoid male harassment: faking her own death. Scientist Carolin Dittrich recently observed this bizarre behaviour while looking for evidence…

1 KIUNGA AREA Close to the border with West Papua, high-altitude forests along the Fly River host the king and twelve-wired BoP 2 RAJA AMPAT ISLANDS This archipelago, located off the tip of Bird’s Head Peninsula, West Papua, is home to the endemic Wilson’s and red BoP 3 ARFAK MOUNTAINS The western parotia and magnificent bird of paradise await those visiting the remote forests of Bird’s Head Peninsula 4 KUMUL LODGE A range of BOPs, such as the King of Saxony and short-tailed paradigalla, can be seen either in the lodge’s gardens or the nearby forests of Rondon Ridge 5 VARIRATA NATIONAL PARK Papua New Guinea’s first national park offers well-maintained trails close to the capital and the opportunity to encounter the raggiana BoP…

THE NOISE WAS COMING from some distance away. A mile perhaps. Maybe more. Naba Miri, an Idu Mishmi elder with a thatch of grey hair, stopped to listen, green walls of jungle pressing in on all sides. There was the high, quavering call of a blue-throated barbet, the trilling of yellow-bellied flycatchers and the harsh ‘ka-ka-ka’ of a male peacock pheasant. But beyond that there was something else, a whooping and hollering high up in the canopy. “Hoolock gibbons,” whispered Naba, as their calls ricocheted through the treetops. “Other tribes have hunted them almost to extinction, but for us they’re misu animals, which means it’s taboo to kill them.” My guide Naba and I were bashing our way up a bamboo-choked ravine in the Elopa-Etugu eco-cultural preserve, a recently established…

“SURELY THIS DOESN’T ACTUALLY EXIST?” thought my nine-year-old self. I was at primary school, head down in an assignment to research and write about ‘an animal in which we were particularly interested’. At nine, I was interested in nothing besides Pokémon, and that duly formed the basis of my research. I was going to study an animal as close to a Pokémon character as possible, and I knew exactly which one: the cute, charming, ‘fire-type’ known as Charmander. That was how I came to find myself searching for images of giant salamanders – enormous, lizard-like amphibians with long bodies and short limbs, which I was convinced were actually Charmanders deep down. They were the strangest and most captivating creatures I had ever seen. From my research, I concluded that ‘my’…

Batteries For long days out in the wild it pays to have good batteries. It’s worth buying several, so you don’t run out of power in front of unmissable wildlife behaviour. Binoculars A good pair of binoculars, such as Swarovski’s CL Pocket 10x25, can be useful for spotting animals before training your lenses on them. Memory cards You need memory cards with plenty of space that can handle lots of rapid shots in raw or jpeg. SanDisk Extreme PRO UHS-II cards have write-speeds up to 300MB and memory up to 512GB. Take plenty to avoid being caught short when magical moments occur. Camera bag It’s important to use a bag that is durable, water-resistant, comfortable to carry, padded for protection, and with sections to keep gear organised, such as Vanguard’s…

AMONG THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL events in evolutionary history (if something that took 30 million years could be called an event) is when a lineage of fish-like animals emerged from the water onto the land, setting the scene for the radiation of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. But over the following 370-odd million years, some of these terrestrial vertebrates performed spectacular U-turns: ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, sea turtles, penguins, whales, dolphins, manatees, dugongs, seals, sealions and walruses all returned to the sea. Who could tell from looking at a whale or a dolphin that they are descended from a group of terrestrial mammals that includes hippos and cattle? Or that manatees and dugongs are the closest living relatives of the elephants? The ancestry of seals and sealions – which, together with…

ONLY FOUND IN AUSTRALIA, kangaroos feature on the country’s coat of arms as a symbol of progress, as they can only move forwards, not backwards. The largest marsupials on Earth are famous for hopping, usually at 25kph, but they can reach speeds of up to 60kph and clear more than 8m in a single leap. ‘Roos’ are gregarious and live in groups called mobs. Females (known as does, fliers or jills) have forward-opening pouches in which they rear young (known as joeys), and males (known as bucks, boomers or jacks) engage in boxing matches. What are a kangaroo’s key features? This is a highly adaptable herbivore with powerful hind legs, which act like springs, and a long muscular tail that provides balance but also functions like a fifth ‘limb’. Scientists…

The crossword ACROSS 8 Habitat that hosts many birds, bats and insects (3,3) 9 Small monkey (8) 10 Juvenile salmon (4) 11 Juicy red fruit of a plant in the genus Fragaria (10) 12 Pathogen (4) 13 Wading bird, related to the coursers (10) 17 ___weed, purple-flowered plant in the genus Vernonia (4) 18 Mature form (5) 19 Tall deciduous trees (4) 21 Plant also known as cup-and-saucer vine or cathedral bells (7,3) 23 Another name for vetch (4) 24 Black-and-white brood parasite of Africa and Asia (4,6) 28 Squirrel’s nest (4) 29 Plant in the order Lamiales, such as the foxglove or snapdragon (8) 30 Eight-legged arachnid (6) DOWN 1 Migratory heathland songbird (8) 2 Large Pacific sea-fish, also called the Asian seabass (10) 3 Fruitfly genus (10) 4…

Every July and August the news is full of gullphobic stories, focusing on the ‘bad’ behaviour of herring and lesser black-backed gulls. But these beautiful birds are highly adaptable and remarkably intelligent, and don’t deserve their reputation as troublemakers. One recent study shows how intently they observe us, learning to favour the same food they see us enjoying, even the same brand and flavour of crisps.…

WHAT IS IT? It’s a new species belonging to the Leptanilla ant family. However, unlike its relatives, which forage and nest underground in small colonies, the thin body and spindly antennae and legs of Leptanilla voldemort suggest that it may not be a true soil-dwelling species. Instead, it’s possible that it simply exploits subterranean habitats, such as air-filled voids and cracks in the ground. WHERE WAS IT FOUND? The new species was found during an ecological survey in the arid Pilbara region of north-western Australia. HOW WAS IT FOUND? Led by Mark Wong from the University of Western Australia, a team of researchers lowered a net into a 25m-deep drill hole, skilfully retrieving the ants using a technique known as ‘subterranean scraping’ (scraping against the hole’s inner surface). Just two…

Shark Awareness Day is on 14th July and these misunderstood fish need all the friends they can get. Take basking sharks, for example, which migrate past Britain and Ireland every summer. They’re treated as dangerous and fearsome, due to their size, gaping maw and impressive white gill arches, yet the zooplankton that these docile, filter-feeding giants come for are at best a millimetre or two long.…

THE MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT SEEMS to have lost all sense of logic. It has just announced that it will give Critically Endangered orangutans as gifts to countries that buy large quantities of its palm oil. That’s like Britain promising to give a free badger to anyone who destroys a badger sett. The lack of logic is jaw-dropping. Malaysia’s Plantations and Commodities Minister, Johari Abdul Ghani, claimed that giving orangutans to trading partners such as the EU, the USA and China would “prove to the global community that Malaysia is committed to biodiversity conservation”. But maybe a better way of demonstrating a commitment to biodiversity conservation would be to commit to biodiversity conservation (and to keep the orangutans in their natural habitat)? ‘Palm oil’ is rather like ‘sub-prime mortgages’ or ‘saturated fat’…

Easy pickings The bird of paradise diet consists mostly of fruit, which is abundant in the New Guinean forests. With the birds’ foraging time hugely reduced, the males can devote a large portion of their day to showing off. The females’ downtime, meanwhile, will be spent watching. A paucity of predators New Guinea lacks large mammal carnivores, and with the island’s marsupials mainly insectivorous, the New Guinea harpy eagle is the top predator. This means that a set of unwieldy plumes might not be the dangerous encumbrance that it would likely be in other tropical forests, such as the Amazon or the Congo. Party animals For those unable to catch up with birds of paradise in forests, many of their plumes can be seen in the head-dresses of the island’s…

The sky’s the limit A flock of northern bald ibis flies over Italy’s rugged Tuscan Hills. Once widely distributed across the Middle East, northern Africa and central and southern Europe, the species has had a turbulent history, eradicated in Europe in the Middle Ages and driven to the brink of extinction elsewhere during the last century, largely due to hunting and habitat loss. By the late 1990s, just one wild population survived, on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. However, thanks to two remarkable conservation efforts – the Waldrappteam Project in Austria and the Eremita Project in Spain – this charismatic bird is making a comeback in Europe. Aiming high The Waldrappteam Project is based at Vienna’s Schonbrunn Zoo. Launched in 2002 and co-financed by the European LIFE programme, it aims to re-establish…

Varanger, Norway Avian spectacles abound in Europe’s Arctic waters VARANGERFJORD’S SEA IS simultaneously freezing and boiling. In late winter, shouldered by flowing snowscapes, the Arctic waters of the north-east Norwegian mainland are festooned with blocks of ice. But the gentle swell also fizzes and bubbles with feathered activity. Thousands of Steller’s, king and common eiders, plus long-tailed ducks, gather to feast in these rich inshore waters. Each member of the flock whirrs forward on hurried wings, its landing triggering the frenzied flight of another, such that the whole swirling morass surges forward in what has been described as ‘the king eider vortex’. This duck is well-named: the drake’s powder-blue crown contrasts with its pistachio cheeks, orange facial shield and strawberry bill. Its manifest beauty is arguably matched by the male…

Can piranhas actually kill a human? IF THE MOVIES ARE TO BE BELIEVED, you only have to dip a toe into an Amazonian tributary to risk having the flesh stripped from your bones by pack-hunting carnivorous fish. The name ‘piranha’ covers several species of South American freshwater fish belonging to the Serrasalmid family. As a rule, they are opportunistic omnivores rather than specialist carnivores – meat, carrion, vegetation, nuts, fruit and seeds are all on the menu. With razor-sharp teeth and the strongest bite-force recorded for any fish, their fearsome reputation is not entirely undeserved. Some species are quite capable of taking a chunk out of a person or snipping off a finger or toe. The vast majority of attacks, though, involve just a single bite, and they seem to…

About 1.5 million people a year are stung by scorpions, most of them in the Americas, the Middle East, India and Africa, resulting in 2,600 deaths. Only about 50 of the 2,000-plus species of scorpion are dangerous to humans. Most of the deadliest ones, such as the yellow fat-tailed scorpion, the deathstalker (both native to North Africa and the Middle East) and the Indian red scorpion, belong to the Buthid family. The complex cocktail of neurotoxins in the deathstalker’s venom, which produces powerful effects at low doses, is especially potent. An anti-venom is available.…

What is the biggest desert? Strictly, a desert is defined as having less than 250mm of water a year falling from the sky. Antarctica – at 14,200,000km2 – is the clear winner, with an average of 150mm of water falling across the continent annually. But if your desert has to be blisteringly hot, let’s go with Africa’s Sahara, which covers nearly a third of the continent, spanning 9,200,000km2 . Swathes of the Sahara average less than 0.5mm of rain per year and decades pass with none at all. How long can a dolphin dive for? Bottlenose dolphins routinely dive for five or so minutes, though they can push that up to 14 minutes on deep dives in search of squid. In the same family, orcas can last at least 55 minutes on…

Quick dip A male kingfisher’s successful dive provides breakfast for the juveniles back at the nest-site. I had been photographing these birds for a couple of hours when I got this shot. Lee Rolfe Wolverhampton Chance sighting After a snowstorm, I packed my camera to try my luck photographing owls at a small wood in Mississauga. While there, this coyote suddenly ran past. Dennis Liu Ontario, Canada Big mouth These Dalmatian pelicans were forcing fish into the shallows, then plunging their bills into the water to make a catch. Hari Kumar Prasannakumar, Edinburgh Room for two I found these two male chalkhill blue butterflies sitting atop a dried oxeye daisy head at St Catherine’s Hill Nature Reserve. Mike Blacknell, Hampshire Catch of the day I had been watching this white-throated kingfisher hunting…

ON SALE 25th JULY From flamingos in France to lynx in Slovenia, wildlife is being restored at scale across Europe. Eager to see it all for themselves, James and Gemma Shooter sell their house, buy a motorhome, pack up their children (and dog) and hit the road for an epic rewilding adventure. In our August issue, they share their stories of resurging wildlife, passionate people and a few flat tyres.…

NICK BAKER “The way the brahminy blind snakes reproduce takes their weirdness to a totally different level” P.36 GILLIAN BURKE The biologist and broadcaster on seeing ‘creepy crawlies’ for the individuals they are P.21 MARK CARWARDINE Our frank columnist on Malaysia’s new policy to gift orangutans to countries that buy its palm oil P.31 LUCY COOKE “The female common frog has a cunning trick to avoid male harassment: faking her own death” P.29 MIKE DILGER “Bird of paradise spotting is not for the faint-hearted – in these remote parts it’s as tough as it gets” P.32…

NEW RESEARCH HAS REVEALED THE Asiatic cheetah is even closer to extinction than previously feared, with one survey carried out between 2021 and 2023 identifying just 26 individuals. Once found from Israel to India and as far north as the Caspian Sea, this extremely rare subspecies is now restricted to a small area in Iran. According to Hamed Abolghasemi, who was also involved in research in the cheetah’s northern Iranian stronghold of Touran Biosphere Reserve until 2017, an extensive, three-year camera-trapping study carried out by the Iranian Cheetah Society suggests the big cat is all but gone from southern Iran. “As there has been no sighted reproduction in recent years, the Asiatic cheetah could be assumed to be extinct in southern habitats,” he says. The depletion of wild prey, especially…

SINCE JAPAN LEFT THE INTERNATIONAL Whaling Commission and resumed commercial whaling in 2019, it has hunted three species: common minke, Bryde’s and sei whales. Both common minke and Bryde’s whales are considered of Least Concern on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, while sei whales are Endangered. Now, the country has announced that it will start commercially hunting fin whales – a species listed as Vulnerable (to extinction). Conservationists have expressed their alarm at the news. “Targeting already vulnerable species is irresponsible,” says Luke McMillan, head of hunting and captivity at Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), who fears this new threat – which adds to existing pressures from pollution, climate change, shipping and underwater noise – will further increase fin whales’ risk of…

CICADAS AREN’T THE EASIEST INSECTS TO study in the wild. For a start, they’re so well camouflaged that they’re almost impossible to spot, locatable solely via their mating calls, some of which are inaudible to adult humans. The fact that cicada nymphs spend years (an astonishing 17 years in one species) living underground makes things even trickier. Reintroducing the UK’s only native cicada, as conservationists plan to do this summer, will therefore be quite the challenge. The New Forest cicada (Cicadetta montana) was once found across the New Forest National Park. However, as a result of habitat loss, there hasn’t been a confirmed sighting since the 1990s. Various subspecies of Cicadetta montana are found across Europe, so scientists from the Species Recovery Trust (SRT) will head to Slovenia, home to…

The broadcaster, naturalist and tour guide shares the most breathtaking seasonal events in the world NEW GUINEA IS THE SECOND-LARGEST island on the planet after Greenland, but its birdlife is best described as out of this world. Possessing an unearthly mystery, New Guinea’s birds of paradise are seldom seen by anyone apart from a handful of film crews and intrepid ornithologists. The first European explorer to observe the birds’ remarkable feathers and bizarre courtship behaviour was none other than naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. He duly ranked them as “the most beautiful and most wonderful of living things”. Birds of paradise (BoPs for short) are a group of more than 40 related species confined to the forests and mountains of New Guinea, a few nearby islands, and north-eastern Australia. All BoPs…

GETTING YOUR HANDS ON A NEW camera is always exciting, opening up a world of possibilities. But finding and buying the right camera can be daunting. There’s a lot of gear on the market with very different capabilities. Buying an expensive camera won’t automatically make you a master wildlife photographer. That takes creativity, time and dedication. But using the right gear can make a massive difference. Over the decades, many photographers have eyed my gear and tried to engage me in the ‘Canon or Nikon?’ debate. But brand doesn’t define you as a photographer. Camera technology is now so advanced, and many brands – including Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Leica, Panasonic (Lumix) – produce high-quality cameras that can deliver the goods. But photography is personal – it’s less about brand…

THIS WOULD HAVE TO BE A CONTEST between the eastern gorilla, an extinct relative of the orangutans from China, and Jon Brower Minnoch, a taxi driver from Washington state, USA, who died in 1983. There are 28 living species of ape: chimpanzee, bonobo, human, two species of gorilla, three species of orangutan and 20 species of gibbon. A typical eastern gorilla is not quite as tall as the average human, but it’s significantly heavier, and outweighs all the others, too. We tend to attach more importance to weight than height when gauging the overall size of an animal. (The elephant, not the giraffe, is regarded as the biggest land animal, for example.) So it is probably safe to say that the eastern gorilla is the biggest living ape species. Or…

SCIENTISTS PLAN TO BRING ICONIC species back from extinction, which might have environmental benefits. Notably, the woolly mammoth could be a flagship species for conservation, highlighting the plight of endangered animals sharing its habitat. Mammoths reintroduced to the Arctic tundra would also work as ‘ecosystem engineers’, trampling trees and permafrost. This might recreate ice-age grassland, a surface that better reflects sunlight and traps carbon, helping to fight climate change. But is the resurrection of extinct species a reality, or simply sci-fi? How does de-extinction work? There are three methods. First, selective breeding or ‘back crossing’ – mating between members of a living species carrying traits of their ancestors, to increase the frequency of those ancestral traits within a population. That’s how cattle were bred to become ‘tauros’, a species that…

How did your career start? In 1986, I had an office job. I went on safari to Kenya and captured quite a striking shot of a leopard, which was chosen for a stock photography catalogue. In its first month on sale it made more than my monthly salary. That gave me confidence, and the offer of voluntary redundancy in 1992 was the push I needed. You’re renowned for a specialism in birds. Why all things feathered? I have been a keen birder all my life, so it was natural that birds would be my main target. I also think that once you become known for something it’s wise to stick with it. How many countries have you visited? 66, most recently Botswana last November. There are a few I would…

THE ARTICLE ABOUT SURVEYING MARINE species from ferries (‘On Deck’, June 2024) reminded me of many happy hours travelling between Portsmouth and Bilbao on P&O Ferries. Professionals from Southampton University were on board to conduct marine research and help us amateurs get the most out of the trips. Our sightings over three trips included fin, sei and Cuvier’s beaked whales, ocean sunfish, and any number of common dolphins and seabirds. Unfortunately, since P&O Ferries sold the route to Brittany Ferries, the route traverses the Bay of Biscay in darkness, so whale-watching has become impossible. I have written to Brittany Ferries to encourage them to change the timings of their passages and advertise them as wildlife-watching tours, but to no avail. I am sure they would be very popular. Pete Rowberry,…

1. Scottish wildcat Habitat loss and hybridisation with domestic moggies has caused this population of European wildcats to become Critically Endangered, and there are perhaps only a couple of hundred left in the wild. In June 2023, 19 captive-bred individuals were released into the Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands, and another 13 are set to be released this summer. 2. Amur leopard Thought to be the most endangered big cat on Earth, the Amur leopard has been brought to the brink of extinction by habitat loss, declining prey numbers and, notably, the illegal wildlife trade. It is Critically Endangered with about 120 individuals prowling the forests of Russia and China, but numbers are on the rise thanks to greater protection and anti-poaching laws. 3. Sumatran tiger Populations of…