I was fortunate to spend a couple of days with John Daniels – a excellent wildlife photographer, who, amongst other things, showed how to photograph birds in flight in the wild. The photo’s that follow are all of birds in the wild which are flying between a branch and a bird feeder at very high speed. Look at the photos in detail and in particular the feather patterns!! These are of Blue Tit, Great Tit and Marsh Tits.
Been busy with a new-dish camera and lens together with some expert guidance from wildlife photographer John Williams – hope you enjoy some of the results!!
Walk on the wild side (From Sherston Cliffhanger magazine Dec 2017)
Your chance to help save a rare species (in Sherston AND it’s really easy…)
You may not know this but within a few miles of Sherston are the last colonies in the UK of a very rare species – and I very much doubt you have ever heard of it.
The national ‘Back from the Brink’ project, funded by the National Lottery, aims to save some of the most endangered plants, insects, birds etc in the UK.
The species in question is the Barberry Carpet Moth and there are only 11 colonies left on the UK with 6 just south of here around Hullavington and one at Westonbirt so it’s national stronghold is all around us but not in Sherston – we need to fix that!!
The Barberry Carpet moth used to be a far more common species in Britain and was widespread over southern England and found as far North as Yorkshire. It definitely won’t eat your carpets as its’ sole native food-plant is Common Barberry (Berberis vulgaris) which is no longer a common plant. Remaining colonies of the moth have become isolated from each other, populations have reduced, and the moth has become far more vulnerable to local extinctions.
The Common Barberry bush is an attractive plant with beautiful orange/ red berries and attractive autumn colours. The bushes grow slowly and ideally need some aftercare so that they don’t get swamped by competing vegetation. They do have spines like their cultivated cousins (so may not be good in a garden with children) and left to grow large they can reach 7 or 8 foot tall in hedgerows but it is possible to keep them much smaller.
Chester Zoo are growing the bushes (so you don’t even have to buy them!!) and ideally Butterfly Conservation want to plant Barberry in clumps of at least 3 plants so that in the future these plants would be capable of supporting a small colony of the moth.
The moth is capable of dispersal but they want to ensure that new plantings are less than a kilometre from each other in order to provide plenty of new areas or ‘stepping stones’ between the existing colonies.
The plan, lead by the Project Officer from Butterfly Conservation – Fiona Haynes, is to start planting out the young bushes over the autumn and winter months. If you enough space for at least 3 plants please get in touch with myself or Fiona and we can supply the plants and help plant them.
Anyone who would like to assist with planting or who has potential planting locations in mind including their own garden, should contact the Barberry Carpet Project Officer Fiona Haynes on 07483 039323 or at fhaynes@butterfly-conservation.org
It really doesn’t get any easier to participate in a national project to conserve a very rare insect.
p.s. We can’t let these Hullavington types lay claim to having most of the colonies!!
Geoff Carss – geoff_carss@hotmail.com
Sometime around the middle of the last century (that makes it seem almost pre-historic) growing up in Northumberland there were plenty of insects around as illustrated by the amount of squished insects on the windscreen. To be clear these were very early memories….
Over the past 50 years the number of flying insects has reduced considerably to the point you just don’t get many squashed insects anymore. While this was my empirical view on things, which I have mentioned in the Cliffhanger before, the BBC reported on a very sobering study just completed in Germany. Scientists have neem measuring the biomass (the total weight of flying insects) in some 60 nature reserves over the past 27 years and can show the biomass has declined by more than 75% – and that’s in nature reserves!! What about the adjacent fields which are almost deserts as far an insects are concerned?
This has a significant number of implications ranging from the impact on animals and birds that feed on insects (fewer chicks etc), not understanding the impact on the diversity of the local ecosystem -such as pests that flying insects feed on (aphids etc) and not really knowing why this is happening. Children growing up today won’t have the memory of a car windscreen covered in squished insects so their ‘normal’ is very different so may not realise there is even an issue – and this may get worse from generation to generation.
On a more positive note there was another study published this week by a team from the University of Oxford who have discovered that since the 1970’s the length of Blue Tit’s beaks has increased by 0.3mm compared to earlier studies and those carried out in Europe where they haven’t seen any increase in beak length. They think it may be due to us humans in the UK providing lots of bird food in feeders and the extra length making it easier to get at the peanuts etc. This is evolution taking place literally in our own back gardens and in our lifetime!!
By the way – did you watch the Chris Packham interview about his life and living with Asperger’s – absolutely fascinating! Watch it on BBC iPlayer…
Below is a somewhat late posting of my monthly article in the Sherston Cliffhanger magazine – from July….. my bad…. and more to follow….
Summer is cracking along as we all realised in the recent heatwave. This caused quite a few problems with young fledglings over heating and the Sherston Avon getting quite low but overall most animals and plants are having a good season with lots of butterfly’s around.
We are surrounded by fantastic wildlife – as good as you will see on Springwatch!! It just takes a little time and understanding to find out some amazing life cycles that have evolved locally – and here are two great examples.
As you may know we have a little freshwater shrimp (whose scientific name is  Gammarus pulex) which gets eaten by fish etc.  On a dawn chorus walk in May, Harriet Alvis from the Bristol and Avon Rivers Trust found a spiny-headed worm called Pomphorynchus leavis in the Sherston Avon – is a really small wormy thing with a bright orange spot!! These infest the shrimp and, as the shrimp are almost transparent, the shrimp are easier for fish etc to find due to the orange spot. The spiny-headed worm’s target is to infest the local fish population and uses the shrimp as an intermediate step. Smart worm!!
Paul Ormiston kindly sent me a video of glow worms. Glow worms aren’t actually worms – in this country it’s actually a beetle which grows up to 25mm called Lampyris noctiluca. It’s primarily the females who glow to attract males. They can’t feed so only live for 14 – 21 days but once the female has mated she stops glowing, lays her eggs then dies. June and July are the best time to see them after dark (of course) and they are typically found in walls or low vegetation but can occur anywhere. If you do see them please leave them alone!!
The last vestiges of the summer have almost departed – there are still some small flocks of House Martins and Swallows to be seen around the village. These are off to much sunnier climes in West Africa where there will be lots more to eat although the migration across the Sahara and Sahel will take it toll on the young birds, some of whom have only just left the nest.
Our insects are also getting ready with some species of butterfly and ladybird finding their way into sheds and garages to over winter as an adult although large numbers of butterfly’s migrate to Spain and North Africa (how does such a small animal manage that!!)
Soon our winter thrushes will return from Northern Europe and Iceland along with large numbers of Blackbirds, Robins and Chaffinches. The Redwings and Fieldfares gather in small flocks in trees and fields around the village and are typically quite wary of people and migrate at night. If you stand outside at night in October you may hear flocks flying over with them making a contact call to one another.
We should start to get more Little Egrets arriving for the winter. The Little Egret can be identified from other Egrets (all of which are all white)Â as it has a black bill and yellow feet. There have been reports of Great White Egrets being seen around Sherston – this is the size of a Heron with a yellow bill and black feet and an extra kink in its neck.
Conkers are dropping and the Virginia Creeper is losing it’s bright red leaves so it’s time too think about getting the bird feeders out if you haven’t already. If you have peanuts and fat balls left over from last year it may be better too replace them as they do go stale.
Wash your bird feeders and water bowls every week or so with hot soapy water as there are some really nasty fungal diseases which spread from bird to bird and may cause fatalities especially with Greenfinches and Chaffinches.
There are still bats flying at dusk and a few House Martins left – but not for long!! Get the supplies of logs and oil in!!
In last months blog I started to explore the part of life around us that we don’t really see as it’s so small.
The next in the irregular series of talks and activities will be on the 23rd June at Sherston Village Hall (near Malmesbury in Wiltshire, UK) starting at 7’30pm.
We will have three different talks. The first, by Butterfly Conservation, will discuss our local butterfly and moth species. This will be followed by an update on the local river improvement project by the Bristol Avon River Trust and finally Wiltshire Ornithological Society will discuss the 100 species of birds seen in the village.
It’s free and will be a fantastic antidote to the Brexit vote the same day!!
It’s been quite some time since I posted (aside from the one a few minutes ago) so below is a gallery of some the UK wildlife photo’s taken over the past few years… hope you enjoy.
sherstonwildlife 