Vertebrates – David Bradley

Six species of deer

The UK has six species of deer living wild.

Red Deer, Cervus elaphus – true native species found in Scotland, the Lake District, and on Exmoor, as well as Northern Ireland, much larger than all other deer, and indeed any other British mammal. Distinctive rusty, red-brown colour in summer. Short tail and pale rump patch.

Red Deer, English Lake District, very old, low-light, scanned film photo

Roe Deer, Capreolus capreolus – true native species present across the whole of England, Scotland, and Wales. Rusty red coat in summer, grey-ish in winter. Prominent white rump and no tail. Females have a small
tush or tuft of hair on their rump in winter.

Roe Deer, Long Drove, Cottenham — Roe Deer

Fallow, Dama dama – native and living freely across England and Wales and into Scotland as well as Northern Ireland, but also. Their coat is quite varied some pale, some less so but with white spots. Usually have a distinctive black inverted horseshoe shape on their rump, and a black stripe on their tail. Only species in the UK where the stags have palmate (hand-shaped) antlers.

(Reeves’) Muntjac, Muntiacus reevesi – introduced species, also known as the Barking Deer for its canine-sounding call. Smallest of deer in UK. Russet brown, distinctive shape and hunched posture. Wide, flat tail with an often-displayed white underside. Present across all of southern England.

Reeves' Muntjac Deer — Reeves’ Muntjac Deer

Chinese Water, Hydropotes inermis – introduced species. 10 percent of world population found in East Anglia and a few other places in England. Usually russet brown coat, which turns grey in winter. Distinctive tusks in males rather than antlers. Often described as having a Teddy bear face with round and protuberant forward-facing ears. Short tail, rump has no distinctive markings, making it distinct.

Chinese Water Deer, RSPB Ouse Fen (Earith), showing male's tusks — Chinese Water Deer

Sika, Cervus nippon – introduced species originally on Brownsea Island but present in that region and North West Scotland, also Northern Ireland. Similar coats to Fallow Deer but shorter tail and a less distinct black stripe, distinctive white rump, also noticeable white glands on the hind legs of the deer.

More about deer and identification on the British Deer Society website.

Dorset 2023

Our Dorset 2023 holiday snaps in no particular order. Scroll down for my four new moths from the week’s mothing and for a ChatGPT “writeup”!

Selfie in The Square and Compass Worth Matravers waiting for live music

Viewpoint looking out over RSPB Arne and Poole

Hay bales east of Kimmeridge Bay, Swyre Head – 5-mile clifftop hike

Brownsea Island "castle" — Brownsea Castle, originally known as Branksea Castle

Boat bound for Brownsea Island — Our boat bound for an afternoon on a very wet Brownsea Island

Harbour-front properties, Sandbanks, the prices of some of these are in the millions

Red Squirrel, Brownsea Island. We saw at least half a dozen

Chain Ferry between Shell Bay and Sandbanks

Corfe Castle phone snap from the pub! — Corfe Castle phone snap from The Castle pub, Corfe!

Corfe Castle station signal box, we didn’t take the train to Swanage on this trip

Woodhenge, Worth Matravers, behind the village car park near the pub

Edge of Lulworth Cove from cliffs beyond Kimmeridge Bay

We saw a couple of Hares on the fields beyond the cliffs

Tower/Folly, Kimmeridge Bay — Clavell Tower, above Kimmeridge Bay

Looking back at the Cliffs towards Kimmeridge Bay and Lulworth Cove

Other cliffs – looking away from Kimmeridge Bay

Routemaster bus in Corfe Castle — An old London Routemaster bus in the town square Corfe Castle

Brownsea Island from the boat, photo by Mrs Sciencebase

No otters, we had hoped for otters on the shore at Sandbanks

Martha Spencer and Archer, The Square and Compass Worth Matravers — Martha Spencer and Archer performing at The Square and Compass

Red Ensign on our boat to Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour

Osprey, record shot over RSPB Arne, saw 2-3

One of a couple of dozen Sandwich Tern with fish, Shipstal Point, no sign of the US Forster’s Tern

Yet another Spoonbill, one of about 70 on Brownsea Island lagoon

Spoonbills in flight — Spoonbills took flight from the Brownsea lagoon as the rain started

Female Stonechat, near Kimmeridge Bay, one of numerous Stonechat — Female Stonechat, there were lots along the cliff path east of Kimmeridge Bay

Anvil Point Lighthouse near Durlston Country Park — Anvil Point Lighthouse, we didn’t dare get any closer, there was no safety fence along the clifftop at this point and it was very gusty!

The newly cleaned Big Globe — The recently cleaned Big Globe at Durlston Country Park

The cottage and neighbours — Out holiday cottage (on the left) and the taller neighbours

Small Copper, RSPB Arne, spotted while we looked for an elusive Dartford Warbler

Red Underwing that had been by the kitchen door after the trap had been on overnight

Heath Rustic – new to me in the courtyard garden of our holiday cottage in Corfe Castle

Hedge Rustic – seen this species previously in Poulner in the New Forest

Common Marbled Carpet – a very varied species, not seen this form for a while

Convolvulus Hawk-moth spotted by Mrs Sciencebase on a sign on a gate, RSPB Arne

European Hornet – mothtrap intruder on a couple of nights during our week in Corfe

The cafe at Durlston Country Park was decorated with panels covered in species names. There were hundreds, including lots of moths. They represent a snapshot of the country park's ticklist — Durlston Country Park’s Seventhwave café ticklist – part of the moth section

Meanwhile, I prompted ChatGPT with the captions for the above photographs and asked it to write an introductory blog post for my holiday snaps slideshow. This is the hilarious write-up with which it came back, perfect for a cheesy travel brochure or airline magazine, hahah.

Exploring the Natural Wonders of Dorset: A Photographic Journey

Dorset, a land of picturesque landscapes, historic treasures, and abundant wildlife, recently played host to my wife and me. Our adventure took us to the charming village of Corfe Castle, where we found respite in a lovely cottage, and embarked on a thrilling exploration of the region’s natural beauty and cultural heritage.

Our journey began at the heart of Dorset’s community spirit, The Square and Compass pub in Worth Matravers. Here, we revelled in an afternoon of live music and captured a joyful selfie to mark the occasion.

The lush landscapes of RSPB Arne and the sparkling waters of Poole unfolded before us at a breathtaking viewpoint, reminding us of nature’s grandeur. Meanwhile, the quaint charm of Corfe Castle, seen from both RSPB Arne and The Castle pub, left us in awe of the region’s rich history.

As avid birdwatchers and wildlife enthusiasts, we made our way to Brownsea Island, a sanctuary for red squirrels, ospreys [over RSPB Arne], spoonbills, and more. The sight of these remarkable creatures in their natural habitat was a true delight, and we even spotted an osprey in flight, capturing a record shot.

Kimmeridge Bay’s dramatic cliffs, Lulworth Cove’s edge, and the tranquil beauty of Sandbanks added to the visual splendor of our journey. We marvelled at the historic treasures like Brownsea Castle and Woodhenge, offering a glimpse into Dorset’s fascinating past.

Our days were filled with the beauty of nature, from the intricate patterns of butterflies to the enchanting flight of spoonbills. Each moment was a testament to Dorset’s natural wonders.

Join us on this visual journey through Dorset’s landscapes and wildlife, as we share the stories behind each photograph. From quaint villages to pristine nature reserves, Dorset is a treasure trove waiting to be explored, and we hope our photos inspire you to embark on your own adventure in this remarkable corner of England.

Cleaning up a Least Weasel with Firefly

While we were standing on the ditch-bridge beyond the old, stilted Rothschild’s Bungalow at Woodwalton Fen National Nature Reserve trying to catch a glimpse of the Purple Emperors wheeling high above is in the oak trees, a mammal squeaked near our feet and poked its head out to see what all the fuss was about. It was a Least Weasel, it seems.

Its scientific name is Mustela nivalis, although it is often known as the Little Weasel, Common Weasel, or in some places simply a Weasel. In the US the term weasel is more generic and applies to a whole range of creatures. Not to be confused with Mustela erminea,that’s stoatally different although not weasily distinguished. Hahahah.

Anyway, as is the wont of these small carnivores, they might pop out into the open, as did this one, before quickly disappearing back into the tangled undergrowth. But, they almost always come back out within a second or two for another look as did this one, before it plopped into the ditch water swam the few feet across and could be heard scuffling on the other side before disappearing for good.

The upshot of all this peeking and scuffling is that I wasn’t quick enough to get the first shot of the creature standing on the bridge near our feet, but I got a sneaky shot of her after she made her second appearance. Unfortunately, there was a blade of blurry green grass right in front of her. I found a Photoshop tutorial on how to remove such distractions, but the techniques didn’t translate easily to PaintShopPro, although I had a go and managed to decolourise the blade so it was brown and slightly less distracting than the green.

I posted the image on Twitter to confirm the species but also to ask if anyone knew of a simple way to remove blurry blades of grass. Various people replied with PhotoShop suggesttions. But, like I say, I use PaintShopPro rather than that pricey Adobe subscription product. Twitter friend Chuck Baggett offered the best solution. A free, beta-testing AI tool from the very same Adobe, known as Firefly. It’s a generative art tool akin to Dall-E and MidJourney, AI apps I’ve discussed at length here previously.

Firefly has an object removal tool within its repertoire. You set an appropriate brush and simply paint over the object you want to remove. Chuck did the job for me on the version of the weasel, I’d tweeted. But, I obviously wanted to test the app myself, so I uploaded a JPG rendering of the DNG output I’d created with DxO PureRaw3 from the original camera RAW file. Set a brush up and painted out the green blade of grass and some of the other distracting fronds. There were some odd artefacts visible when viewing the eye close-up, but they were relatively easy to fix in PaintShopPro without having to start from scratch in the Firefly AI app.

Least Weasel photo before and after Firefly retouching

I can highly recommend Adobe Firefly for removing such problems from your photos. Much quicker and easier than the various approaches offered for PhotoShop. The app adds a watermark that declares the image was generated with an AI app, but I think in this case it’s quite fair of me to crop out that declaration given then I was simply manipulating my own photo with a digital brush! Obviously, the Firefly system can generate artwork from text descriptions just as Dall-E and MidJourney do and those generative images probably should be declared as such in some circumstances.

Spawn again amphibian

TL:DR – It’s 2023. Once again we had frogs, then frogspawn, and then tadpoles in our garden wildlife pond.

UPDATE: 22nd Feb 2024 – Spawn present in the morning, perhaps been there a day or two, it’s been raining heavily so hadn’t checked since the weekend.

UPDATE: 9th May 2023. Still lots of very active tadpoles but no sign yet of metamorphosis beginning in any of them.

UPDATE: 25th March 2023, lots of tadpoles have now hatched, as of 19th April they are big but not yet showing signs of metamorphosis.

Son reported from our garden pond #PondLife on 11th March 2023 that there were at least a couple of dozen frogs visible in the pond mating and spawning. First dollop of spawn was seen on this date. He counted at least 30 frogs. I got a bit of video of the activity a day later in the rain. I will try and do better if it is dry this evening. The video was done as more of a hasty record of the sound of the frogs croaking.

To provide a little extra information I asked ChatGPT to act as a herpetologist and to tell me more about the Common Frog, Rana temporaria. This is what had to say, mildly edited:

The Common Frog is a type of amphibian, which means that it spends part of its life in water and part of its life on land. In the spring, adult frogs migrate to breeding ponds where they mate and lay eggs, spawning. The tadpoles hatch from the eggs and spend several months in the pond before metamorphosing into juvenile frogs and leaving the water to live on land.

If you have a garden pond, it is possible that you could attract Common Frogs to your garden. These frogs are quite adaptable and can live in a variety of habitats, including garden ponds. They prefer ponds that are relatively shallow (less than 1 metre deep) and that have plenty of vegetation around the edges. This vegetation provides cover for the frogs and their tadpoles, and also provides a food source for the tadpoles.

If you do attract Common Frogs to your garden pond, you may notice that they are quite vocal during the breeding season. Male frogs call to attract females, and the chorus of calling males can be quite loud. You may also notice the presence of tadpoles in your pond during the summer months. These tadpoles are herbivorous and feed on algae and other aquatic vegetation.

It’s important to note that while Common Frogs are a common sight in many British ponds, their populations have declined in some areas due to habitat loss and pollution. If you want to help support Common Frog populations, you can create a garden pond with plenty of vegetation. You can also participate in citizen science projects that monitor frog populations and help researchers better understand these fascinating creatures.

Farne Islands and Northumberland

On our recent trip to Seahouses in Northumberland and boat trips to the Farne Islands, we ticked ~83 birds (including two species we’d never seen before, American Black Tern and Hooded Crow), 9 Lepidoptera (including new for us, Wall Brown), and on the mammal-front, a few hares and some distant white-nosed dolphin.

Here’s the complete list of birds in A-Z:

American Black Tern, Arctic Tern, Avocet, Blackbird, Blackcap, Black-headed Gull, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Collared Dove, Common Buzzard, Common Tern, Coot, Cormorant, Curlew, Dunlin, Dunnock, Eider Duck, Fulmar, Gannet, Goldfinch, Great Black-backed Gull, Great Tit, Green Sandpiper, Greenfinch, Grey Heron, Greylag Goose, Guillemot, “Guillemot, Bridled”, Guinea Fowl, Herring Gull, Hooded Crow, House Martin, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Kestrel, Kittiwake, Knot, Lapwing, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Linnet, Little Egret, Little Tern, Magpie, Mallard Duck, Meadow Pipit, Mediterranean Gull (Saltholme), Moorhen, Mute Swan, Oystercatcher, Peregrine Falcon, Pied Wagtail, Puffin, Purple Sandpiper, Razorbill, Red-legged Partridge, Reed Bunting, Reed Warbler, Ringed Plover, Rock Dove, Rock Pipit, Rook, Sand Martin, Sanderling, Sandwich Tern, Sedge Warbler, Shag, Shelduck, Shoveller, Skylark, Song Thrush, Spotted Flycatcher, Starling, Stonechat, Swallow, Swift, Turnstone, Wheatear, Whitethroat, Willow Warbler, Wood Pigeon, Wren, Yellowhammer.

The Lepidoptera:

Cinnabar moth, Garden Tiger larva, Large White, Painted Lady, Red Admiral, Small Copper, Small Rivulet moth (Bempton), Small White, Wall Brown.

Mammals:

Hare, Rabbit, White-nosed Dolphin

Twentypence Otter

TL:DR – We saw an otter preening on the banks of a local waterway in early Spring 2022. Also a pun or two from friend of the blog, Patrick C.

A road that crosses the River Great Ouse a short way north of our village has the fabulous name of Twentypence Road. Downstream of the river is the Twentypence Marina where often you might espy Kingfishers darting about from branch to reed. Indeed, we parked up ahead of a country walk there and saw two within a couple of minutes of getting out of the car.

Upstream of the bridge is a nice walk that can take you along the edge of farmland to walk on the flood bank or you can head back towards our village along the Cottenham Lode. There is also a fishing lake surrounded by trees, which is often good for various bird species and beyond is a growing herd of roe deer to be stalked. However, today we took the north bank of the river and headed for the footpath beyond the riverside cottage.

It was in front of the cottage that I spotted a creature cleaning itself on the riverbank. An otter, or more precisely Lutra lutra, the repeated word, a tautonym, implying this species is the “archetype” of the Lutra genus. The species is often called the European or Eurasian Otter and sometimes that is qualified as River Otter to separate it from the Sea Otter. Anyway, it was a surprise to see it out in the open rather than simply catching a glimpse at a distance of a head ducking under the water. It made my day, as one might say.

Incidentally, otters are fairly closely related to weasels and stoats but also to seals, seals are certainly closer genetically speaking to otters than they are to dogs with which they are often compared.

Incidentally, my great friend Patrick tells a nice joke on this topic.

Patrick: Had a lovely chicken tarka at the curry house last night

Me: Sounds delicious, but don’t you mean a chicken tikka?

Patrick: No, it’s like a chicken tikka, but a little otter!

Me: Oh

Patrick: Had an onion budgie as a side

Me: Nice, but surely you mean an onion bhaji

Patrick: No, it’s like an onion bhaji, but a little cheeper…cheaper…cheeper, geddit? Ah, never mind…

Me: When was the last time you went clubbing?

Patrick: Aloo bangain?

Me: No idea, the songs all sound the same these days

Patrick: No, bangain bharta!

Me: I don’t care how much you haggled on the price to get in

Patrick: Naan?

Me: Don’t be silly, she prefers a tea dance

Patrick: Paneer tikka masala

Me: What she does in the privacy of her own home is none of your business

Patrick: Aloo gobi

Me: Yeah, see ya next time!

Chinese Water Deer

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.