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.

Habitats.

Part three the butterflies of summer grassland.

Caterpillars that eat grass give rise to some of the most common butterflies. As their food is widespread and green throughout the year, the caterpillars- and hence the butterflies- have a relatively secure future. All Britain's grass-feeding caterpillars belong to the browns or skipper families. The butterflies are on the the wing between June and September and can be seen in the corners of the field, beside country roads and anywhere else which has long grass like waste ground and old railway tracks. Three of the skippers that can be common among long grass, forever chasing each other, are the small, the large and essex skippers. They are found in open areas, like some of the brown butterflies- the small heath, the marbled white and the meadow brown. Other browns live in places sheltered from the wind. Gatekeepers and speckled woods, for example, keep to hedgerows, tracks or grassy woodland glades where they can be seen basking in the summer sun. Woodland edges and corners of fields warm up into sun traps during the summer months. Brown bubutterflies stake out their territories there, basking in the heat. Ringlets are recluses among butterflies, and prefer wet grassy hollows in or beside shady woodland. Rough open grasslands can become very hot and exposed to winds. Skippers fly fast over the grasses, and are still active on windy days . Marbled whites which belong to the brown family, are sometimes plentiful on chalk grasslands.

The salamandridae family.

Part two the great crested newt.

The great crested newt is the largest of all of the three British newts. They are found throughout the whole of Great Britain. They have dark brown backs and flanks, with large black warty spots on them. Their undersides are either yellow or orange in colour, with  large black blotches that are unique to each individual newt. You can tell the sexes apart from the size of their spots with males having the larger spots.The males can also be told apart from the females by their jagged crest that runs along their back during the breeding season, the crest is smaller along the tail which also has a silver line running along it. The females have no crest but do have a orange stripe running along tip of their tail. Like all newts they normally live on land but will return to their breeding pools to breed. Their breeding is similar to all other newts. After they have performed a courtship display, the male deposits spermataphore (a small packet of sperm) from his cloaca (reproductive and excretory opening) into her path. He will then move sideways in front of her to encourage her into position where the spermataphore will be picked up by her cloaca. No actual mating take place. The females then lays between two to three eggs a day on submerged aquatic plants between March and July. All of the eggs are wrapped carefully in individual leaves. The efts (larvae) hatch after about three weeks and live in the pond as aquatic predators feeding on tadpoles and worm and insect larvae. They are preyed on by fish, so they are rarely in rivers. lakes or garden ponds. After metamorphosis into air breathing juveniles after about four months, they live a mainly terristrial life. They may move up to eight hundred meters from the pond. After about two to three years they reach maturity and return to the same pond to breed. The young and the juveniles spend most of their time in dense cover outside of the breeding season which will include scrub,rough grassland and woodland, rocks and logs are perfect shelter for them. The adult is completely poisonous so is preyed on by very few things, but the efts are not so they will be eaten by fish, rats and grass snakes. They may live for about ten years in the wild. The juveniles and the adults feed on other newts, tadpoles, froglets, worms, insects larvae and water snails. Thet hibernate during winter under logs and rocks or in the mud at the bottom of their breeding pools. They are protected by law.

Habitats.

Part two the garden pond.

Garden ponds have become life savers for Britain's frogs,newts and toads in the past thirty years. This is because so many of farm and village ponds have been filled in or polluted. Garden ponds will also benefit gardeners because the amphibians they attract will eat slugs, snails and insects. Ponds will attract bathing birds like blackbirds, which in turn may feed on tadpoles. Grass snakes may also be seen in the pond. Foxes may also be seen drinking from our garden ponds. If a pond has smooth sides then hedgehogs may fall into them but can`t climb out, this may cause them to drown. But by putting a little bit of wire mesh, hanging in the water on one corner will enable them to escape. Whether the pond is made from an old bucket or sink it will soon colonised by insects such as pond skater or lesser water boatman. May, damsel and dragon flies will also be seen flying over the pond hoping to catch flies. A few jars of natural pond water tipped into the pond will add plankton, water snails and even water beetles. Frogs and toad will eventually come across the pond, toads generally prefer deeper water to toads, so depending on the size of the pond it will determine whether you will attract toads or frogs. The frogs or toads will leave the pond,  after about two or three years they will will return to the same pond to breed. Newts to will find their own way to the pond. Long grass by the ponds edge will provide cover for the froglets when they leave the pond in June or July. Tadpoles normally prefer to be in a shallow area of the pond where it will be warmer. The resident fish will eat the tadpoles, sometimes quite a few will be taken by fish.  A rockery is a good idea for frogs and toads to hide in during the day. If there is plenty of undergrowth bank voles or wood mice may move in.

The salamandridae family.

Part one the common newt.

Although common newts live in their breeding pools for most of the spring, they will spend most of the summer and autumn on land. The smooth newt is another name for the common newt as well. Most common newts will hibernate on land during late autumn and winter. They won`t go far from their breeding pools so lush pasture, open woodland or scrub land are good places to find newts. It is hard to tell the males and females apart outside of the breeding season, but the males have a bright orange underside with dark spots on their throats and bellies during the breeding season. Whereas the females will have quite a pale underside. The male also has a wavy crest along its back and tail. The common newt is Britain's most widespread of all of our newts. Like all newts it has smooth, soft skin with a tail flattened at the sides. Their colour on land is yellow olive with the female being duller. They are about four inches long, from head to tail. The male will do a courtship ritual to attract the female, it will vibrate its tail in front of the female in distinctive fashion. The male will then deposit a sperm containing capsule called a spermatophore, this will be left in front of his mate who then manoeuvres herself so she can pick the capsule up with her cloaca. Fertilization then occurs inside the females body. The female will then after a few days start to lay her eggs individually. She will lay up to twelve per day in aquatic leaves, although she may lay a total of four hundred eggs. After about two to three weeks, depending on the water temperature the eggs hatch to become tadpoles, this is their larval stage. For the first few days the tadpoles live off any food left in their yolk sacks. After this the tadpoles start to eat freshwater plankton. Unlike frog tadpoles, newt tadpoles are carnivorous so they will live off mollusc's, insect larvae and similar foods. At first the tadpoles look like small fry, but later look more like the adults. But they have feathery external gills emerging from the head on either side. As the tadpoles grow, firstly they develop front legs then their back legs grow, then with growth in their lungs their gills eventually shrink. The tadpoles shifts from being  fully aquatic to possessing a body for a mostly terrestrial existence. A baby newt is called a eft. They leave the water after about ten weeks. Some tadpoles may over winter in the larval state and emerge the following spring. The newts then take about three years to become sexually mature. They will then return to the same breeding pools to start the process all over again. During the day common newts will hide under stones or logs, emerging on damp night to hunt slugs, insects and worms. Common newts are greedy hunters, using their sticky tongues to catch their prey. They swallow their prey whole, they track their prey with both  their sight and scent. Unlike lizards (which they look like) newts have no scales, they also move very slowly. Also newts will never bask in the sun unlike newts. Hedgehogs, rats and grass snakes are their biggest predators. All newts are protected bylaw in Europe, but in Britain it is only illegal to sell common newts under section five of the wildlife and countryside acts of 1981 with respect of sale only. Therefore their destruction or capture is still permitted, in my opinion though this should be changed as the greater crested and palmate newts are struggerling.

Spring equinox

Happy equinox to everyone. This is a time when day and night are of equal length across the whole world, in the northern hemisphere we celebrate spring.From now on the days are getting longer, and nights are getting shorter. This is the festival of balance, the balance of light and dark, the balance of the suns active energy and the moons receptive energy, the balance of the outer and inner worlds, and the balance of the conscious fire energy with the forces of the watery unconscious. At the spring equinox we can look forward towards the balance within ourselves. Everything in nature is coming alive and awakening. The sun is gaining strength, the days are getting longer and warmer. Blossom and catkins are erupting on the trees, buds are bursting, seeds are germinating, spring flowers appear everywhere and eggs are hatching and all of the animals are preparing to have their young. Everywhere their is evidence of life's ability to regenerate. The energy is turning from within the dark depths of winter and the inner world, to an outward manifestation of the conscious world. It is to throw off the restraints of winter and the cold months, and now reach out for what it is we want for the world and ourselves. It is a time of rain and sunshine, the elements all mingle together, fire and water, spring gales, high tides, feelings of wildness and chaos as the high winds blow into our faces. Run wild with emotions in that wind and celebrate life's fertility. We are breaking out and moving forwards, as we feel empowered to take risks, strike out on our own and make things happen. The balancing of the earths energy is now balanced, light and dark, conscious and un-conscious, fire and water. Here there is the union of power which  balance fertility and manifestation. This is the spark of the life force.