Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => General Forum => Topic started by: johnw on April 02, 2013, 09:20:05 PM
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Mark and other bird lovers -
Birders here have sighted a Crested Caracara near Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia. It's causing quite the sensation.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1120523-official-bird-of-mexico-makes-surprise-visit-to-ns (http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1120523-official-bird-of-mexico-makes-surprise-visit-to-ns)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2013/04/01/ns-rare-bird.html (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2013/04/01/ns-rare-bird.html)
johnw
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Amazing how it got there. :o More amazing that no-one noticed it en route! :-\
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Went for a training flight over Ponui and Waiheke Islands in a two seater plane. Afterwards I went for a wander and spotted dozens of Long-tailed Blues (Lampides boeticus) feeding on Verbena rigida, a naturalised South American plant. It seems to have self introduced from Australia, although it is found in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia & islands of the Pacific, including Hawaii. In Europe it is found up to the English Channel, which it occasionally hops. In New Zealand it was first seen on Waiheke Island in November 1965. Somehow it has got on Biosecurity's non-actionable pest list (5/12/97). This is strange considering it should be viewed as a good biological control agent for Gorse (Ulex spp) which is certainly a invasive plant in New Zealand. There was plenty of gorse in this area.
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A good reason to visit Australia - peacock spiders. 8)
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They are amazing Anthony. (Although I am actually more likely to visit Australia in the hope of seeing wombats, koalas and duck-billed platypus than spiders) How big are they?
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None of those down here where we are, Anthony,
but I did find this on youtube
"Peacock spider" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GgAbyYDFeg#ws)
cheers
fermi
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Antony, Ron, can either of you give me a name for this moth which I found a bit comatose on the garage floor today?
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It looks like an angle shades Roma, Phlogophora meticulosa (http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?id=1731)
Very beautiful.
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Thanks Ashley. I will look it up on the moth site.
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Thanks for the link John
Migrants are now starting to arrive in N Ireland - swallows, sand martins, various warblers and an Osprey have been seen
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Just received a text from a friend of an early Swift at my local reservoir, our previous earliest was 22nd April 1996.
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Today I was visited by severl small red bees that I haven't seen before. I've so far been unable to identify them online. Red mason bee looked promising but mine were far deeper in colour than the photos on the internet.
My own attempts to attempts to photograph them were not particularly helpful for identification.
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Bombus monticola has a red abdomen, but the head may be yellow?
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Anthony they were fox red on thorax and abdomen . black stripes on the abdomen. The rest was black.
Closest I can find is Andrena fulva females but I would have said larger than 10mm.
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Just received a text from a friend of an early Swift at my local reservoir, our previous earliest was 22nd April 1996.
Large numbers of Swallows and martins here now. Can do anywhere now without seeing swallows. Good numbers of swifts are now being reported around Lough Neagh
Saw this cutie yesterday
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I took a few photos of the Comma - they may be two individuals or the same one.
It wasn't unil a couple of years ago when I got really close I noticed they have green spots on the underside.
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One of the success stories of British butterflies. 8)
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Indeed. I'm guessing it was the switch in the main food plant that saved the day. I really enjoyed seeing you long tailed blues, Anthony - I've seen them sometimes when I've been in Europe. I was reading an article about the NZ butterflies in the UK Butterfly conservation magazine, you have some really interesting fauna!
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My 1906 copy of 'The Butterflies of the British Isles' by Richard South says it is "almost entirely confined to...............Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Monmouthshire...." , which shows you how limited its range once was. The reduction in hop farming in the 19th century must have hit it hard, and a change in food plant would help, but Dutch elm disease didn't seem to hold it back and South lists nettle and elm as food plants. Another elm feeder, the large tortoiseshell has totally gone from the UK, but the writing was on the wall long before Dutch elm disease. There must be multiple factors contributing to its success? Mild damp winters are deadly for hibernating butterflies like the comma, so perhaps climate change was one such factor? One experiment carried out many years ago was a reintroduction of the white admiral to a former habitat. E B Ford wrote in his book 'Butterflies' (New Naturalist) - white admiral release into Wateringbury Woods in 1907 or 1908 failed, but range extension meant hundreds were seen in the same wood in 1934. The orange tip and speckled wood are two more that are extending, or have extended their ranges, and their food plants haven't changed, although the orange tip behaves differently in England, feeding on Jack-by-the-hedge, rather than cuckoo flower in marshy areas in the Scottish Highlands.
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I'm very poor at common names so I had to research these:
Jack-by-the-hedge = Alliaria petiolata
Cuckoo flower = Cardamine pratensis
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Thanks Maggi. I forgot to put them in. I love common names, but that's because I used to go botanising with my Grandmother when I was very young and she had an amazing knowledge of local names for flowers. Butter and eggs (Linaria vulgaris) comes to mind, and it came flooding back when I saw a patch many years later next to Falkirk College where my Dad worked!
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My route to the Perth Show took me by way of a 2 day break near Dunkeld. Not only did I have a red squirrel on the bird feeders immediately outside my cottage door, but there was evidence of beavers all around.
Last August the owner’s track to the main road was blocked by a fallen tree with the ends of both stump and tree in the tell-tale shape of a sharpened pencil. The warden from the nearby Loch of the Lowes confirmed her suspicions that this had been done by a beaver. Beavers were known to be at the Loch, but until this occasion, the extent of their activity had not been realised. They had crossed the road by means of a culvert under the burn, and further investigation revealed the widespread felling of trees and the construction of a dam alongside the road. The first 2 pics show the habitat and close up of the tree which blocked the track, the 3rd and 4th the constructed dam and the resulting flood.
There are reckoned to be around 100 Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber) in the river Tay catchment area. Unlike the beavers introduced into the Knapdale area, the Tay beavers have originated from private collections by escaping or being released.
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Wow! :o That's been kept quiet, or is this a recent release?
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This large tortoiseshell was seen over the weekend on the Isle of Wight.
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Wow! That's been kept quiet, or is this a recent release?
Anthony, there have been several press reports about the Tayside beaver population in recent years, but it is not high profile. I picked up a fact sheet about them at the Loch of the Lowes published by Scottish Wildlife Trust. If you put 'Tayside Beavers' into Google it comes up with numerous links.
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Thanks Maureen. Interesting to see how the landscape changes as a result of such a large number.
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A friend gave me some 2 clumps of Eupatorium for a wilder part of the garden. To get it in quickly yesterday I hacked out some large lumps of weedy "turf", and dropped them in the holes, only to discover 1 turf section still lying there upside-down when I thought I had finished. When breaking it up with the spade a slow worm shot out. Luckily undamaged. This is the 5th sighting of slow worms I have had in the last week in the area. One had fallen in the hole for a water stop-cock and had to be rescued.
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Anthony, is that the same Large Tortoishell we used to have, Nymphalis polychloros?
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Yes. I remember seeing them when we were on holiday near Lucca, Tuscany in July 2006. It will be interesting to see if this a lost migrant or a small colony hanging on in England.
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The last time I saw slow worms was on the Isle of Cumbrae in the Firth of Clyde in 1988.
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for some reason I didn't read the bit about Isle of Wight :-\
I think they also turn up as releases/ escapes - but it would be really exciting if they came back.
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Judging by its condition it has overwintered somewhere, but where?
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This must be one of the deadliest killers in the world's oceans?
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My son James is on a three day tramp along the Hilary trail in the Waitakeres. They survived a vicious thunder storm over night, but a possum broke into their store tent, chewed a hole in a back pack and ate the muesli and pita bread - Friday's breakfast and lunch! ::)
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Derek Bacon sent me this: What a wonderful world by David Attenborough. http://www.youtube.com/embed/auSo1MyWf8g?rel=0 (http://www.youtube.com/embed/auSo1MyWf8g?rel=0)
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I do like the way such things are available on YouTube.
Great that Derek is keeping in touch with you over there Anthony - makes you seem a bit closer to home!
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Alas, it is only through trivia that I have contact with Derek. Must send him some news and then see how he is.