Habitats.

Part five life in a birch woodland.

Birch, together with willow,hazel and rowan, are (pioneer) species that quickly colonise bare ground. Birch takes root readily in poor soils, and its almost weightless seeds are blown far. Its thin leaves soon rot, this then add nutrients to the soil for the trees roots to eventually re-absorb. The broken down leaves will also enrich the soil for more demanding trees like oak and beech. These two trees will grow into tall trees and eventually deprive the silver birch of light. Birch provides food and shelter for a variety of animals, birds and insects. Redpolls, blue and great tits and a host of other birds feed on birch seeds. The caterpillar of the mottled umber moth will eat the leaves of the birch. The patchwork leaf cutting bee will also use birch leaves, as she lays her eggs individually she will leave some pollen for the eggs for when they hatch. She will then seel the chamber with the leaf, she will continue this process until the chamber is full. Heather and bilberry are among the plants that thrive on the acid soils colonised by birch. The light shade that birch cast encourages the growth of many other plants, too. Young birch trees and the grass beneath them provide food for hares and roe deer. Razor strop and bracket fungus live on dead birch stems, and fly agaric will some times live on the living roots. Birch bark has been used for centuries to start fires, this is because of the natural oils it possesses, i will talking about this more on one of my bushcraft pages. The silver birch is a tree of life giving properties, vitality and nourishment. It signifies new opportunities, new beginnings,birth, re-birth and inception.

The salamandridae family.

Part three the palmate newt.

This is the smallest of the British newts. The male has a olive brown colour back with a dark streak above its eye. The female is slightly lighter in colour than the male. They are about three inches in length including their tail. Breeding males have webbed hind feet, a low, smooth crest with a short filament on their tail, the crest is less obvious after the breeding season(which is between February and May). Both males and females have dark spots on their backs. But unlike the common newt the palmate does not have spots on its throat. Both the male and the female have a light yellow under-belly with few spots.The palmate newt is active by day and night during the breeding season, after this they normally appear while it is raining or on humid days. The male also has swollen glands (cloaca) during the breeding season. They live in ponds, ditches, marshes and woodland. The female spends the breeding season laying between one hundred and three hundred eggs which turn into larvae after about three weeks, these then metamorphosise after about nine weeks into adult like newts. The young newts which are known as efts become sexually active after two years, but sometimes this can be slowed or delayed by the process of neoteny. Adults hibernate under logs and stones, but more often in water during November and February. They feed on invertebrates,crustaceans, frog tadpoles and planctonic animals. They may live up to ten years in the wild.

Habitats

Part four motorways as havens for wildlife.

The amount of grassland and scrub along the broad verges of Britain's major roads exceeds the total area of all the country`s nature reserves put together. People rarely walk on roadside verges because its unsafe and its forbidden to do along motorways. Because of this they offer a comparatively safe home for all kinds of animals that can tolerate traffic noise. Moles, particularly, benefit because no one needs to plough up their burrows, and because traffic vibration brings worms, their major food, to the surface. Small mammals such as bank voles and shrews abound, and foxes and rabbits are quite common as well. The varied plant life offers food as well as cover to some of the small mammals, but it is often contaminated with salt and oil from the road surface and with lead from the exhausts of cars. Road verges serve as corridors along which animals can spread into our cities and also across wide areas of our country. The actual crossing of roads is a problem , however. Many animals do manage it-even slow- moving moles- but rabbits, hedgehogs, deer and other animals active at night are often dazzled by vehicle headlights and ran over. Many thousands are killed on our roads every year. But their corpses serve as a food supply for scavengers such as foxes, crows, magpies and even buzzards. Rabbits dig their warrens in well drained, undisturbed embankments, but will normally feed in near by fields and not by the road side. Hovering kestrels will be looking for voles, mice and beetles for them to eat.  A newly built road may cut across an established badger trail, and badgers using it may get run over because of this. Early in the morning crows may be seen feeding on the casualties from the night before, such as hares, rabbits and even hedgehogs. Next time you are driving along some of our busy roads have a lookout for some of this wildlife.

Timing of spring.

As you might expect the biggest influence on when spring arrives in your part of the country is latitude. Spring starts in the far south, it then works its way north. There may be more than a months difference from when it arrives in the scilly isles to it spreading north to the shetland isles, which is about one thousand miles further north. Its not just latitude, but longitude aswell. Because of the warming influence of the atlantic ocean, it means spring will start earlier in the west than in the east. Also altidude plays its part, for every one hundred and fifty meters you climb the temperature will drop by one degree. So the caingorms are eight degrees colder than sea level. Spring arrives earlier in our cities than our highlands. Urban areas can be up to two degrees warmer then the surrounding countryside. This is due to the urban heat island effect. Finally there are the local climates which are called micro climates. South facing slopes will warm up quicker than north facing slopes. There are a few early signs of spring that we can look out for aswell,  ladybirds,frogspawn and bumble bees are a few. The later signs of spring are peacock butterflies,hawthorn blossom and swifts returning are another few signs to look out for. The bumble bee bombus territres is active all year round because of milder temperatures, we know this because of studies that have been carried out on it.