Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2025 i BBC Wildlife Magazine

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH – unless, it seems, you’re the predator of a capercaillie. Research in Proceedings of the Royal Society has shown that the practice of diversionary feeding, which involves leaving food out for problem predators, boosts the breeding success of these large woodland grouses. With just 500 birds left in Scotland, capercaillies are on the Red List of threatened species. Habitat loss and collisions with deer fences are partly to blame, but numbers also suffer when predators, such as pine martens and badgers, eat the capercaillies’ eggs and chicks. Researchers designed an experiment to see if diversionary feeding can help. They divvied up portions of the birds’ range in the Cairngorms National Park into ‘extra food’ sites, where they left out chunks of…

IT HAS BEEN DONE ON LUNDY (SIZE: 4.45km²), Ruapuke Island (16km²) and South Georgia (3,500km²), but now conservationists want to eliminate non-native, invasive predators from much, much larger sites: New Zealand’s North (114,000km²) and South (150,000km²) Islands. No one denies that it is an admirable ambition because alien, mainly European mammals have had a devastating impact on New Zealand’s native fauna, with an estimated 25–30 bird extinctions, plus losses of reptiles, amphibians and insects. So when the government in Wellington announced it would aim to eradicate three species of rat, as well as stoats, weasels, ferrets and brush-tailed possums, the entire world took notice. It was bold and aspirational – but could it be done? And was it actually a good idea? “If we don’t make every effort to preserve…

AS MY URBAN BIRDER moniker suggests, I have a keen interest in birds that have chosen to call cities their home. Recently, I decided to research the birds named after particular locations. A few names popped up, such as the Nashville warbler, Dartford warbler, Sandwich tern and Baltimore oriole. But I didn’t find any that habitually hung out in the places after which they were named. Except for one: the Bogotá rail. Rails, by nature, are shy. Secretive. They have plump, laterally compressed bodies, an adaptation for creeping through wet marshes with thick reeds. Think soggy grasslands, cattails and shadowy waterlogged fields that might swallow your wellies whole. When seen front-on, their skinny appearance is thought to give rise to the term ‘thin as a rail’. Rails skitter rather than…

Watch Seven Worlds One Planet: Roadrunner’s Race Against Time on the BBC Earth YouTube channel ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER Karine is a freelance photographer and picture editor, as well as leading photographic tours across the globe. She was named Wildlife Photographer of the Year in 2022.…

THE DEEP SEA IS BY FAR THE LARGEST habitat on Earth. It is, says Natalie Lawrence in her book Enchanted Creatures, “the last wilderness vast enough to hide monsters”. Unsurprisingly, many myths have arisen about the terrifying things that lurk in these ink-black waters. But giant sea beasts are not just the stuff of legend, they actually exist. And now, thanks to the latest generation of remotely operated vehicles and underwater drones, we are gaining thrilling insights into this hitherto mysterious deep-sea megafauna. The colossal squid, which may weigh up to 500kg and has eyes the size of footballs, was filmed for the first time as recently as March 2025. “Feast and famine is the name of the game” Supergiant amphipods have also been captured on camera. Relatives of garden…

FROM THE VIVID FEATHERS OF RAINBOW lorikeets to the bright blue bottoms of mandrills, the tropics are certainly a flamboyant feast for the eyes. Writing in the 19th century, Charles Darwin was struck by this, remarking on the “rich variety of colours”. This is borne out by modern research. A team led by the University of Sheffield studied more than 4,500 different songbird species from around the world, preserved in London’s Natural History Museum, and found that tropical songbirds are more colourful than their non-tropical counterparts. The feathers of those species living close to the equator display around 20–30 per cent more colours than those of birds living at higher, non-tropical latitudes. This is true for male and female birds, even though they can sometimes look very different from each…

BLUE-RINGED OCTOPUSES ARE a genus of small octopuses known for their iridescent blue markings. The patterns only reveal themselves when the creatures are disturbed or feel threatened. This can lead to cases of mistaken identity – when the animals are calm, they appear relatively harmless. These octopuses hunt and defend themselves using their bite, which contains a highly toxic venom. This paralyses their prey so they can gobble it up, and can also be deadly to humans. Thankfully, bites are rare as blue-ringed octopuses aren’t aggressive. Where do blue-ringed octopuses live and how big are they? Found in the tropical waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, blue-ringed octopuses inhabit coral reefs, rocky areas of the sea bed and tidal pools. They are diminutive creatures, often fitting into the palm…

THE LION TRACKS ARE FRESH. Though I’m only an amateur, even I know this because they’re sharp, each ghostly step a cleanly defined imprint on sand pitted by last night’s rain. Paco Morapedi, my guide, peers over the side of the car, uncertain. “They were moving around a lot, back and forth. It’s hard to follow where they went.” It’s a sparkling morning in Botswana’s Moremi Game Reserve, a huge haven of open grasslands, floodplains currently waterlogged from seasonal rainfall, and perfumed forests where rutted Jeep tracks wind between mature ebony and mopane trees. We’re following the confusion of pawprints more in hope than expectation, pausing occasionally to observe a pair of iridescent Burchell’s starlings flashing turquoise in the sunlight, or a yellow-billed stork motionless by a pond, when the…

FOR AS LONG AS I COULD REMEMBER, the northern goshawk had been elusive, existing just at the edge of everything. This ‘grey ghost’ haunted my imagination. In the early 1970s – which was just as I was beginning to fall in love with nature, and with birds of prey in particular – the goshawk made a clandestine return to Britain’s most remote forests. “I finally encountered the real thing, in a park in Berlin. The goshawk almost looked as if it was glowing” From the age of five I had a treasured possession, a Hamlyn paperback titled simply Birds of Prey, which highlighted these birds in all their wonderful variety. A pair of northern goshawks at their nest graced the front cover, glaring and red-eyed. It’s clear that even in…

LIFE IS FULL OF HAZARDS FOR EVERY WILD animal – and injuries involving open wounds can often lead to a slow death from infection, unless licking the site alone is sufficient to keep it bacteria-free. But scientists in Uganda have witnessed a more sophisticated approach to wound care and social wellbeing practised by eastern chimpanzees in Budongo Forest, in the country’s Western Region. This semi-deciduous tropical rainforest is home to several communities of chimps that are prone to injuries caused by accidents and fights, as well as lacerations made by human snares. Over the months of the study, 40 per cent of chimps in the Sonso community alone were observed to have suffered snare injuries. The primates were seen to use natural medicinal aids, choosing fresh leaves from plants known…

Colonial work I found these weaver ants in a jungle near Chintamani Kar Bird Sanctuary. One of the ants had caught a mosquito and was carrying it up the tree, when it met others waiting to help get the food to the nest. Subhendu Debnath, Kolkata, India Awaiting lunch In Thailand’s Kaeng Krachan National Park, I came across this beautiful snake, a Pope’s green pit viper. It was obviously in ambush mode, probably waiting for a small lizard or rodent to come within striking range. James France, Sedgefield, County Durham Perfect petals I found this cuckoo flower a few hundred yards from home in a sodden meadow grassland by the River Itchen in Hampshire. Mike Blacknell, Bishopstoke, Hampshire The dive I had been photographing this kingfisher all day before I…

The crossword ACROSS 7 10-legged crustacean of deep ocean waters (4,4) 9 Hunt and eat (another animal) (4,2) 10 ___ cap, fungus also known as tippler’s bane (4) 11 White-flowered plant, also known as goose tongue and fair maids of France (10) 12/23/18 Diving bird of lakes and rivers, Podiceps nigricollis (5-6,5) 14 Of a fruit, sufficiently mature to fall from the tree (4-4) 16 Purple-flowered plant also known as saintpaulia (7,6) 17 Featherfin ___, another name for the pennant coralfish (8) 18 See 12 21 Tuberous water plant in the genus Sagittaria (4,6) 22 Limbless invertebrate (4) 23 See 12 24 Juvenile frogs (8) DOWN 1 ___ crayfish, freshwater crustacean considered invasive in Europe (6) 2 The ___ Five, Julia Donaldson children’s book about unattractive African animals (4) 3…

The indigenous people of British Columbia have been stewards of their territories since the Stone Age, living in harmony with nature and the spectacular wildlife with whom they share a beautiful rainforest and ocean. Now, as they emerge from a cultural genocide, Canada’s First Nations are once again asserting their authority on the region. ON SALE 18th SEPTEMBER…

KILLER WHALES, OR ORCAS, have been filmed making and then using what is thought to be the cetacean equivalent of a pumice stone. It’s the first time that a marine mammal has been seen creating a grooming-related tool and then using it with another individual. Lots of animals, including primates, birds and elephants, are known to use tools, but examples among marine mammals are more limited. Some bottlenose dolphins wear sponges on their beaks, seemingly to help them catch fish, while humpback whales make ‘bubble nets’ to help them catch krill. In both cases, though, the behaviour is restricted to foraging contexts, and the animals don’t modify physical objects. Not so the resident killer whales of the central Salish Sea, which is the part of the Pacific Ocean between the…

I MET MY FIRST MINOTAUR BEETLE recently. It was a male and he was making his way across my friend’s field, which she manages for wildlife. I stopped and watched him for a few minutes. He walked with purpose and determination, and I admired how he seemed to know exactly where he was going. I congratulated my friend on her rewilding efforts and then dutifully added the sighting to the biological recording site, iRecord (irecord.org.uk). In Greek mythology, the Minotaur was a monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull. He lived at the centre of the Labyrinth, and was eventually slain by Theseus, who navigated the Labyrinth with the help of a thread given to him by the King’s daughter, Ariadne. His beetle namesake…

THE BLACK-CAPPED chickadee is wonderfully onomatopoeic. When the diminutive songbird, which is Canada’s answer to the great tit, spots a great-horned owl perched in a tree, it broadcasts a shrill ‘chickadee-dee’ noise to highlight its disapproval. It’s unimpressed but not too alarmed, because the bulky raptor is slow and unlikely to cause trouble. Then the chickadee spots a pygmy owl, also seated. This is a smaller, more agile predator, with a taste for small birds. In response, the chickadee ups the ante in the only way it knows how, adding an extra couple of ‘dees’ to the end of its call: ‘Chickadee-dee-dee-dee!’ The sound is an avian call to arms, signalling flock members to mob the intruder. All at once, half a dozen small birds dive-bomb, harry and berate the…

How did your career start? I spent much of my childhood with my family in a trailer in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, where my love for nature began. Later, I went fishing with my dad, which made me even more curious about wildlife. I started photographing wildlife at 15. In 2021, I shifted to conservation photography. Which of your images is most important to you, and why? Last year I took a photo of a lowland tapir with all four paws burned due to the Pantanal wildfires. It went through a long rehabilitation process before being reintroduced into the wild. The image brought great attention to this ecosystem. What’s been your most memorable experience with wildlife? In 2023, I was in the Pantanal, working with the Giant Armadillo Project. We found…

I’M CURRENTLY IN THE ATACAMA DESERT, Chile, where an exceptional snowfall has blanketed the high-altitude landscapes surrounding San Pedro. I was really frustrated because all the plans I had for my week here had been cancelled – until today, when I decided to drive along Route 23 through the amazing landscape of Piedras Rojas (‘Red Stones’). During the journey I had the incredible pleasure to be able to photograph wild vicuñas walking through the snow-covered desert with the Andes in the background, a really rare sight. I can come back another time to see the Red Stones and the Tatio geysers, but I probably will not be able to see again this incredible spectacle of nature. Veronica Ferri, Milan, Italy Cooke book I hope you will pass on my thanks…

FAKARAVA’S SOUTH PASS IS MORE than a name on a map. Divers speak of it like a rite of passage. In this remote corridor, the current runs wild and the sharks run the show. Welcome to French Polynesia’s Wall of Sharks, where hundreds of grey reef sharks glide through the blue like they own it. Which, of course, they do. I’ve encountered plenty of sharks across more than 170 dives: scores of reef sharks in Belize, a few hulking tigers in the Bahamas, a dozen hammerheads 35m down in Sudan’s Red Sea. I think I’m ready for a predator-dominated reef, for the kind of drama that comes with countless teeth. Apex predators are rare, toothy and large enough to spike your heart rate. Turns out, I’m not quite ready for…