Trunch Wildlife Watch
The editor of this topic is Anne Horsfield who has been writing Wildlife Watch articles for the Trunch Mardle for several years (contact 01263 720649).
June 2009
Two ‘good news’ reports this month.
The blackbirds who lost their first brood of chicks to a predator have nested in the conifer tree beside the bathroom window. There are now two pink new hatchlings and the parents are busy feeding them. I hope the young will successfully fledge this time.
There are now fledgling Blue, Great (left) and Longtail Tits about the garden – all successful outcomes.
The Brimstone butterfly eggs that were laid on our Buckthorn bushes have hatched and we have found about a dozen little green caterpillars. They are exactly the same green as the leaves and rest along the leaf midribs so are quite difficult to find. Often finches and tits perch in the bushes so the caterpillars are living dangerously. (The Buckthorn berries are poisonous to humans so I wonder if the larvae get a chemical from the leaves and taste nasty to birds.)
The butterfly laid some eggs right at the end of the twigs, amongst the leaf and flower buds. This is a good strategy because the tiny new caterpillar can eat and hide amongst tender growing leaves. The biggest caterpillars are now nearly an inch long and are eating bigger tougher leaves.
The Buckthorn has many tiny yellowish flowers that must have lots of nectar as they are constantly visited by bees. A really useful plant for wildlife – perhaps plant one in a damp corner of the garden?
I really enjoyed the BBC’s Springwatch this year. Great photography and information. I am sure you have seen the Painted Lady butterflies
(see below) about the gardens. They are big and orange and fly very fast. They have migrated to Britain in vast numbers this year. Their life was history was explained on Springwatch.
In February, in Morocco, a generation of Painted Ladies flew north across the Mediterranean Sea to France. Here they bred on the lush vegetation in March/April and a new generation of butterflies flew over the Channel to UK to breed on our lush vegetation in May/June/July. Any butterflies emerging in our autumn will not survive the winter sadly. Perhaps, as Springwatch suggested, some fly south to Morocco to start the cycle again.
It’s an amazing story and just shows how wildlife continually looks for new opportunities to feed and breed. Wildlife adapts all the time and, in fact, has done so during the 5 or 6 ice ages that have occurred in the last half a million years. Climate change is not unique. What is unique is that man is monitoring it and coming to unproven conclusions. Man even thinks he can control it! We can put less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere but we cannot control the variable output of heat from the sun.