Wildlife April 2013

[Mark Griffiths]

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.

[Anthony Darby]

One of the success stories of British butterflies. 

[Mark Griffiths]

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!

[Anthony Darby]

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.

[Maggi Young]

I'm very poor at common names so I had to research these:

Jack-by-the-hedge =   Alliaria petiolata

Cuckoo flower  =  Cardamine pratensis

[Anthony Darby]

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!

[jomowi]

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.

[Anthony Darby]

Wow! That's been kept quiet, or is this a recent release?

[Anthony Darby]

This large tortoiseshell was seen over the weekend on the Isle of Wight.

[jomowi]

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.

[Anthony Darby]

Thanks Maureen. Interesting to see how the landscape changes as a result of such a large number.

[brianw]

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.

[Mark Griffiths]

Anthony, is that the same Large Tortoishell we used to have, Nymphalis polychloros?

[Anthony Darby]

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.

[Anthony Darby]

The last time I saw slow worms was on the Isle of Cumbrae in the Firth of Clyde in 1988.