Biology – Page 20 – David Bradley

The Feral Crocus

My very good friend, photographer Diana Sanders took a lovely shot of a yellow crocus growing wild near her home. She posted the photo to acclaim on her Facebook describing it as:

Like a candle flame amongst the dead leaves. If we get any more hard frosts it won't look so cheerful, though.

It triggered me to write a short poem:

The Feral Crocus

A feral crocus nestles among the long-dead leaves
A glimmer of hope, a tiny, shining candle of life
Its flame burns bright among those oaken thieves
Their dew can’t steal this golden light

But Arctic winds might rustle those chilling leaves
And times are hard and so could be the frost
The dew that’s stilled will begin to freeze
And snuff that flame then forever lost

Still, there is hope as it is overcast
The cloud-filled skies blanket all below
The bloom won’t face an icy blast
And tomorrow, we can bask in that feral crocus glow

The Chinese Water Deer (Hydropotes inermis inermis) is not a species native to the UK as its name might suggest. It’s an Asian species related to the Korean Water Deer (Hydropotes inermis argyropus). There are numerous CWDs in England that are descended from escapees from Whispnade Zoo in the 1920s.

I saw a couple of them on the recently opened new section of RSPB Ouse Fen this morning. Coincidentally, the deer was mentioned on the BBC’s One Show on 31st January. The genus name Hydropotes derives from the Greek meaning “water drinker”. The inermis component of the scientific name comes from the Latin meaning unarmed, alluding to the animal’s lack of antlers. It is worth noting that both male and female adults have protruberant upper canines, which look rather menacing despite the animals rather “Teddy Bear” facial features leading to it being referred to as as a Vampire Deer in some camps. The canines in the two females I espied today were not particularly prominent.

Normally Norfolk

We do like to be beside the seaside, especially the North Norfolk seaside. We took the opportunity for a couple of days of long walks there. Sad that our pooch is no longer with us, but it meant we managed almost 20 miles of tramping over two days.

Sanderlings snuggling on Snettisham beach

Turnstone having a plodge in between stone-turning sessions

Backlit Curlew in flight near Heacham, Norfolk

One of dozens of Brent Geese over Heacham

Red Kite with carrion evading Marsh Harrier

We did attempt to spot the juvenile White-tailed (Sea) Eagle that is jaunting between Cley and Stiffkey at the moment. It is a released bird from the Isle of Wight reintroduction scheme.

Glossy Ibis in the Fens

Regular readers will know I’ve mentioned the Glossy Ibises that have seemingly taken up residence on our patch during the last year or more. There were three on the flooded farmland adjacent to Earith roundabout for a long time last winter. These are African/Mediterranean birds that seem to be spreading their wings more and more (see also Great White Egret, Little Egret, Cattle Egret). The Glossies we’re seeing here may well be hopping across from a breeding colony in Southern Spain, while the GWEs may be feeding on red crayfish in the lakes of northern France and then hopping across The Channel.

Anyway, there are now seven Glossies feeding and preening at RSPB Berry Fen just up the road from Earith. Happily, they were “showing well” from the footpaths in the sunshine today. I did a bit of photographic enhancement of this shot to show how the natural colours might show given even brighter African sunlight.

North Norfolk New Year

TL:DR – Diary item from New Year trip to North Norfolk in 2022.

Mrs Sciencebase and myself often run away to the north Norfolk coast, originally it was just the quickest route to the beach for us, but then we started looking out for aves and this part of the country is so rich in birdlife you can’t help but visit again and again. On our short trip to Morston Quay between Xmas and New Year, we “ticked” more than 60 bird species, not counting the dozen or so extras on Blakeney Duck Pond. Here are a few scenic shots and some of the birds.

One of 100 or so Curlew we saw, this one in Blakeney

70+ Snow Buntings, Holkham Gap (not all of them pictured!)

One of four Shore Larks at Holkham Gap, first time we’ve seen this species

1000s of Pink-footed Geese over Morston Quay (not all of them pictured!)

1. Bar-tailed Godwit
2. Barn Owl
3. Black-headed Gull
4. Black-tailed Godwit
5. Blackbird
6. Black Brant Goose
7. Blue Tit
8. Brent Goose
9. Buzzard
10. Canada Goose
11. Cetti’s Warbler (call)
12. Collared Dove
13. Common Gull
14. Coot
15. Cormorant
16. Curlew
17. Dunlin
18. Dunnock
19. Goldcrest (call)
20. Great Black-backed Gull
21. Great Tit
22. Greylag Goose
23. Herring Gull
24. House Sparrow
25. Jackdaw
26. Kestrel
27. Knot
28. Lapwing
29. Linnet
30. Little Egret
31. Little Grebe
32. Long-tailed Tit
33. Magpie
34. Mallard
35. Marsh Harrier
36. Meadow Pipit
37. Mute Swan
38. Oystercatcher
39. Pheasant
40. Pied Wagtail
41. Pink-footed Goose
42. Red Kite
43. Red-throated Diver
44. Redshank
45. Reed Bunting (call)
46. Robin
47. Sanderling
48. Shelduck
49. Shorelark
50. Shoveler
51. Skylark
52. Snow Bunting
53. Sparrowhawk
54. Starling
55. Teal
56. Tufted Duck
57. Water Pipit
58. Whooper Swan
59. Wigeon
60. Wood Pigeon
61. Wren

Sunny Suffolk – Lackford Lakes

Paid just our second visit of the year to Lackford Lakes Nature Reserve in the hope of seeing the Siskins that had been reported there this week. We stopped off at the ringing hut where two of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust team had netted various birds (Treecreeper, Blue, Great and Marsh Tits, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Robin, and others) and were carefully recording the recatches and ringing any new catches for their conservation efforts.

So, what did we see on the day? 46 species not in order of sighting but loosely grouped:

Siskin
Goldfinch
Redpoll
Great Tit
Blue Tit
Long-tailed Tit
Coal Tit
Marsh Tit
Dunnock
Chaffinch
Robin
Nuthatch
Wren
Treecreeper
Blackbird
Song Thrush
Starling
Lapwing
Green Woodpecker
Sparrowhawk
Common Buzzard
Kestrel
Cormorant
Goldeneye
Mallard
Tufted Duck
Gadwall
Wigeon
Pochard
Shelduck
Shoveller
Little Grebe
Moorhen
Coot
Greylag Goose
Canada Goose
Egyptian Goose
Grey Heron
Black-headed Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Jay
Rook
Jackdaw
Wood Pigeon
Collared Dove

Male Siskin (left) and what looks like two Redpolls). There were a couple of dozen Siskins around.

Check out the autumnal moth named after a stargazer and a mythical beast

The Sprawler moth seems to spread its forelegs wide when it’s at rest on a chunk of wood. Its delicate patterning gives it something of a resemblance of a bark surface, perhaps. But, it is its scientific name that is a little curious and needs further explanation.

Sprawler Moth - Asteroscopus sphinx — The Sprawler, new to my Cambridgeshire garden 8th November 2021

Lepidopterists originally referred to The Sprawler as Cassinia after the Italian astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini who lived from 1625—1712. It was first cited by Hufnagel in 1766. But, why was it named after an astronomer? The answer lies in the behaviour of the moth’s larva, its caterpillar. When startled the little green beast rears up its spine-covered head as if gazing heavenwards. Why it does this is something of a mystery, but then much about insects remains mysterious. Perhaps the behaviour is enough to fool a predator into thinking the larva might bite back.

The Cassinia genus was dropped in recent times for the term Asteroscopus, which is a more generic term for a star gazer, one might say. The astero part from the Greek for star and scopus from the word for watching (see also telescope). So, the full scientific binomial for The Sprawler is Asteroscopus sphinx (Hufnagel, 1766).

2021 is the year I discovered 35 new species of moth in our back garden

UPDATE: The Sprawler turned up in early November, bringing the total up to 36 new for the garden in 2021. No December moth yet, at the time of writing, sadly.

These Lepidoptera were all new for my back garden in Cottenham drawn to a 40 Watt ultraviolet “actinic” lamp on the night noted. Any of dubious ID I had confirmed from a photo by Sean Foote better known on Twitter as @MothIDUK to whom I am very grateful for the assistance and have put a tip in his tip jar.

The 35 species new for the garden in 2021 are as follows

7/3/21 – The Satellite
20/4/21 – Agonopterix purpurea* (To Myo lure)
10/5/21 – Esperia sulphurella
31/5/21 – Mottled Pug
2/6/21 – Brown Silver-line
4/6/21 – Hypena rostralis
4/6/21 – Buttoned Snout
6/6/21 – Aethes tesserana
6/6/21 – Red-belted Clearwing*
12/6/21 – Currant Clearwing*
13/6/21 – Yellow-legged Clearwing*
13/6/21 – Argyresthia curvella
14/6/21 – Red-tipped Clearwing*
16/6/21 – Orange-tailed Clearwing
24/6/21 – Hedya salicella
25/6/21 – Mompha ochraceella
4/7/21 – Aleimma loeflingiana
4/7/21 – Cnephasia agg.
11/7/21 – Plain Pug
15/7/21 – Dark Umber
19/7/21 – Raspberry Clearwing*
24/7/21 – Leek Moth
24/7/21 – Scarce Silver-lines
2/8/21 – Dewick’s Plusia (I’d only seen this moth previously in Greece)
4/8/21 – Helcystogramma rufescens
9/8/21 – Toadflax Brocade (Had larva in the garden in 2019)
19/8/21 – Yellow Belle
21/8/21 – Tawny-barred Angle
22/8/21 – Common Wave
23/8/21 – Udea lutealis
24/8/21 – Square-spot Rustic
1/9/21 – Aethes smeathmanniana
5/9/21 – Swammerdamia pyrella
19/9/21 – Beet Moth
10/10/21 – Acleris schalleriana
9/11/21 – The Sprawler

*Drawn to pheromone lure during the day, rather than actinic light at night. If non-target then pheromone is named

Numbers were very much down on my previous three seasons of trapping, never getting to more than a couple of hundred moths on any given lighting-up night and usually of 30-40 species on such nights. When I last counted (2/9/21) I’d seen about 4760 moths of 260 species. In 2019, I counted 12000 specimens and hadn’t lit up anywhere near as frequently in that year as I have during 2021. Early to mid-September got quite busy with a lot of Large Yellow Underwings and Setaceous Hebrew Characters etc.

The spring was cold and wet, summer was a bit of a washout too, but we had two or three warm spells in September.

Birds spread their wings

A Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis) flew into Berry Fen when we visited a couple of days ago to settle among the eight Little Egrets feeding there. In so doing it spooked two of the six Glossy Ibis that were feeding on the edge of a flooded area and they flew off to join four others of that species.

Cattle Egret over Berry Fen near Earith, Cambridgeshire, October 2021. Sixteen of this species seen there, the following day (county record)

Apparently, there were fifteen additional Cattle Egret in a flock on the same patch the day after we visited, which is the largest recorded gathering of this species in Cambridgeshire. A county record, in other words. The bird is ostensibly an African species that has been extending its range over the last decade or two because of habitat opportunity and climate change.

UPDATE: There were a record 57 Cattle Egret at this site at the beginning of November. I have also now seen four at RSPB Ouse Fen on the Reedbed Trail side close to Over.

UPDATE: Four Spoonbills at Kingfisher Bridge Nature Reserve during November 2021. 15 February 2022: Spoonbill at Smithy Fen.

Great White Egret, one of half a dozen seen at RSPB Fen Drayton, December 2020

Back in the early 1990s when we visited Botswana and Zimbabwe we saw lots of egrets and then were very surprised to see one or two on the North Norfolk coast in subsequent years. Little Egrets are, almost 30 years later rather commonplace. Similarly, the Great White Egret is seen in many parts now and a sighting is no longer considered particularly notable. I heard that part of the reason is that there is an abundance of red swamp crayfish in the lakes of northern France which have provided a food source and hopping off point for this species. The presence of at least a couple of dozen Glossy Ibis on our patch during the last year or so, may similarly be due to individuals spreading their wings from a known breeding colony in Southern Spain. The experts may know more, but I don’t think anyone knows for sure.

Glossy Ibis feeding on farmland adjacent to the River Cam at Chesterton, just outside Cambridge, Spring 2021

All buzz and no sting

There was a bit of a buzz in our local Dissenter’s Cemetery here in Cottenham. Cemetery trustee James Blunt got in touch to tell me a bit about it. Turns out hundreds if not thousands of apian non-conformists had turned up and were partying at the rear of the graveyard.

I met up with James mid-afternoon and he directed me to the patch where Ivy Miner Bees (Colletes hederae) were actively mating and laying eggs. The bee is pretty much harmless, a solitary, as opposed to social, species that regularly adopts quiet patches of ground to “mine” hundreds of holes. The holes being the repository for new life among the granite and graves. The bees are noisy and fast-moving, but not an aggressive insect, all buzz and no bite, you might say.

The species is a recent arrival to The British Isles, having been first noted by entomologists in 2001, it having arrived from the continental mainland. It has been spreading its wings ever since and mining a home for its eggs on these quiet patches usually where a steady supply of autumnal blossom on ivy plants is nearby.

The Dissenters’ Cemetery as many residents might remember featured in an early episode of TV crime drama Silent Witness, which was originally set in and around Cambridge. Today, the cemetery’s gates, flanked famously by a huge pair of monkey puzzle trees welcomes all for long-term rest and respite. The site was established when Anglican burials of non-conformist parishioners was no longer possible. Back in the middle of the Victorian era. At the time, the Anglican priest was not allowed through the gates.

The Cemetery now welcomes mourners and other visitors who might in the spring and early summer notice the standing yellow spikes of mullein plants, the rare yellow-berried holly, and earlier still various species of snowdrops. At any time of year, they can puzzle over the meaning of life in the shadow of the trees and they might imagine the tragic tales of those who served in two World Wars who are buried here. Come the autumn, it is a small part of the apian world that might hold a visitor’s attention briefly. Life, as they say, will out…even among the graves.