Bbc wildlife spring

Spring 2015 Volume 33 Number 5 Issue 399

RIGHTS FOR WHALES!

NEW RESEARCH REVEALS THEIR INCREDIBLE CULTURE

RETURN OF THE LYNX What can Britain learn from Europe’s rewilding success?

BEHAVIOUR

NEST INVADERS!

How this cuckoo chick fools its tiny foster parent

CITY BEES How you can help our rarest pollinators

CAN FACEBOOK SAVE BRITISH SEAHORSES? LEARN ABOUT SHARK CONSERVATION O SWALLOW NESTS O CARNIVOROUS PLANTS

WELCOME

DID YOU KNOW?

BORNEO’S CARNIVOROUS PLANTS HAVE EVOLVED SOME ASTONISHING RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER SPECIES. Find out more on p68

Christian Ziegler

Welcome Big, charismatic mammals are thriving in mainland Europe, especially carnivores. Changing attitudes to both wildlife and landscape-scale conservation mean that populations of lynx, brown bears and wolves are at last either stable or growing.

Only a handful of European countries are missing out on this bonanza – and sadly that includes Britain. Clearly on our packed island we don’t have room for large predators (and herbivores such as bison), right? Well, the figures tell a different story.

Bears and wolves can be found within an hour of Rome. In some parts of Europe wolves are living in suburban areas with up to 3,050 people per square kilometre. That’s higher than the population density of Cambridge or Newcastle. Head into the wilds of Scotland and you may have just nine people per square kilometre. But attitudes are changing – there seems to be real momentum behind calls for the lynx to be reintroduced to Britain. So what can we learn from Europe’s success? Find out on p26.

Matt Swaine Editor matt.swaine@immediate.co.uk Spring 2015

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED

this issue

44%

of all swallows return to their nest in the next breeding season See p11

Dolphins can still remember the unique clicks of other dolphins even after being separated from them for 20 years

IN BBC WILDLIFE THIS MONTH LENNY ANTONELLI CONTRIBUTOR Lenny is an environmental writer. “Rewilding isn’t so much about reintroducing species as creating more habitats close to home that we can get lost in,” he says. See p26 PHILIP HOARE CONTRIBUTOR Philip is an author and film-maker: “Being echolocated by a sperm whale is the most direct evidence I’ve had for the cultural curiosity of these animals.” See p38 NICK DAVIES CONTRIBUTOR Nick has studied cuckoos for 30 years: “Cuckoo trickery is amazing – secrecy and speed in egg laying, beautiful forgeries and manipulative begging by chicks.” See p60 KATE BRADBURY CONTRIBUTOR Kate is the author of The Wildlife Gardener.

“Urban pollinators help fuel my bumblebee obsession. Without them I’d be pretty miserable,” she says. See p88

See p44

25

The total number of Hainan gibbons left in the world – all on one island See p49

GET YOUR DIGITAL COPY Buy a digital edition of BBC Wildlife Magazine for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, PC or Mac. Visit iTunes, the Google Play store, Amazon or www.zinio.com to find out more.

ON THE COVER: Lynx by Jelger Herder/Buiten-Beeld (captive) Insets: Ton Döpp/Buiten-Beeld; Brandon Cole/naturepl.com

BBC Wildlife

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SPECIAL OFFER

CONTENTS Spring 2015

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26 Big carnivores are reclaiming former haunts across Europe. Will we see wolves, lynx, bears and bison in the UK?

Wild 6

A LL NEW WILD!

Dawn chorus drama How you can join the BBC Wildlife team to experience this amazing spectacle

8

Spring wildlife highlights Essential species to see this month Plus The latest news and wildlife sightings

11

16 Latest scientific research Feisty lemmings, crocodile games, ant-nest beetles and new seadragon species

20 Saving sharks Revealed: why threatened sharks are still ending up in our restaurants

14

Find out why grass snakes shed their skin

Hainan gibbon population hits an alarming low

50 Dogs protect vultures

38 Rights for whales!

Sniffer dogs used to locate poisoned bait in Greece Plus Dolphins in captivity

New research reveals their intelligence and culture

60 Nest invaders!

88 City bees

14 Nature Table

BBC Wildlife

49 Rare ape extinction

Carnivores are returning to most of Europe – will we see them here in Britain?

Borneo’s pitcher plants’ incredible relationships with other species

How oil beetle larvae rely on solitary mining bees

4

26 Return of the lynx

68 Carnivorous plants

Animal behaviour

Discover the science of discarded grass snake skins Plus Harvest mouse nests and cuckoo-spit

Agenda

Discover how cuckoos are caught in an evolutionary arms race with host parents

Swallows’ nests Discover why these birds return to their nests Plus Garden spiders

12

Features

Pollinators are thriving in our cities – how can you help boost their numbers?

51

Mark Carwardine What does a Cornish whale sighting mean for oceans?

52 Facebook and seahorses Can social media help British wildlife?

Plus How to run your own online campaign

54 Your Feedback Demand for wildlife lessons in schools, inspirational nature writing and faithbased conservation Spring 2015

READ OUR COLUMNISTS AMY�JANE BEER “The skin of a grass snake is distinctive — each scale has a pronounced keel.”p14

80

Discover the body forms caterpillars use to defend against predators

BILL ODDIE “It is in spring that we realise which migrants have returned in diminished numbers.”p23

60 88 The evolutionary arms race that tricks a reed warbler into raising a cuckoo chick

Urban areas can be good for some pollinators

MARK CARWARDINE “Seeing a bowhead whale in Cornwall was like spotting a great white in the Thames.”p51

38

New research is changing the way we think about whales

Discover 79 Animal language lessons Plus Why some young

84 Wildlife gardening Create the perfect wildlife compost in your garden Plus Make a bioblitz tool

97 Dawn Chorus Day Experience an amazing international celebration

98 Book reviews Rare British wildlife and how to get into insects

100 TV and Radio Shark, bears and a Caribbean adventure

102 Wildlife events Reserve of the Month, bee survey and Puffin Fest 2015

52

Find out if an online campaign can save the spiny seahorse

Regulars 23 Bill Oddie Signs of spring? This is the season that mixes bad news with new growth

24 Wildlife school prize A new award to celebrate wildlife in schools

36 Subscription offer Save 30 per cent and get 6 issues for just £16.75

111 Crossword Try our brain-teaser and win a weather station

112 Your Photos Share your best photos at www.discoverwildlife.com

OR GET IN TOUCH… EDITORIAL Tel 0117 314 7366 Email wildlifemagazine@immediate.co.uk Post BBC Wildlife Magazine, Immediate Media Company, 2nd Floor, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN SUBSCRIPTIONS AND BACK ISSUES Tel 0844 844 0251 Email wildlife@servicehelpline.co.uk Post BBC Wildlife Magazine, FREEPOST LON16059, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8DF OTHER CONTACTS App support immediateapps@ servicehelpline.co.uk Advertising Louise Edwards 0117 314 8384; louise.edwards@immediate.co.uk Syndication Emma Brunt 0117 314 8782; emma.brunt@immediate.co.uk

TALK TO US ON SOCIAL MEDIA...

114 Tales from the Bush Spanish horseshoe whip snake saved from traffic

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5

Wolf: Maurizio Biancarelli; cuckoo: Thomas Hinsche/Minden/FLPA; caterpillar: Ingo Arndt/naturepl.com; humpback: Doc White/naturepl.com; seahorse: The Seahorse Trust

birds are bigger than their parents, captive orcas’ fins and animals with amazing snapping bones

Reviews

JOIN THE DEBATE www.discoverwildlife.com/forum

WILD SPRING

WILD SPRING WHAT TO SEE O BEHAVIOUR O CONSERVATION

LISTEN TO A REDSTART ON

TWEET OF THE DAY http://bbc.in/1DNvnUE

Q BEHAVIOUR

SONGS OF PRAISE Spring’s increasing day length triggers a hormonal change in birds that enlarges the parts of the brain controlling song production. The result is one of Britain’s most accessible wildlife dramas – the dawn chorus. To experience it fully you have to be up before sunrise, and with a little knowledge you can start to break the wall of sound into individual species. Among the earliest birds to sing are A 1979 study found that large-eyed robins, thrushes and birdsong is 20 times redstarts (pictured), followed by more effective at dawn than at midday, due to smaller insect-eaters such as favourable conditions wrens, dunnocks and warblers. such as reduced wind Morning is when females are and air turbulence. most receptive to fertilisation after producing an egg and males sing to proclaim their territory and defend their paternity rights. International Dawn Chorus Day is Sunday 3 May (see p97), and we’re inviting all our readers to witness the spectacle then share their photos, videos and audio files on the Local Patch area of our website.

Markus Varesvuo

20x

l Post your recordings at www.discoverwildlife.com/forum

WILD SPRING

UK HIGHLIGHTS The essential wildlife highlights you have to see this month, compiled by Ben Hoare.

Q BEHAVIOUR

DOGFIGHTING DUKES Never plentiful, this diminutive May butterfly teeters on the brink in Britain, just about holding on at a scattering of downland sites, mainly in the Cotswolds and from Wiltshire to West Sussex.

It would be tragic to lose the ‘duke’, for it is an extraordinary insect. Males live barely a week and engage in communal displays, devoting much of their short but feisty adult lives to dogfights over the grass.

TOP TIP On sunny May mornings males gather in ‘leks’ near the ground.

Q HABITAT

MEADOW MAGIC Unimproved lowland grassland is botanically rich, thrums with insect life and resounds with the aerial displays of skylarks and lapwings.

So a visit to a traditionally managed meadow is a must in April or May, when grasses are still short and spring wildflowers such as cowslip take centre stage. This relative of the primrose is on a 25-strong shortlist in a poll to choose our favourite flower.

GET INVOLVED You can cast your

Clockwise from top left: David Kjaer; Steve Round; Cliff Raby/Alamy; John Walters; Chris van Swaay/Butterfly Conservation; Paul Hobson; Laurie Campbell; Paul Hobson

own vote for Britain’s Wild Flower at www.plantlife.org.uk/wildflowervote

Q MIGRATION

SPRING ARRIVALS The first willow warblers make landfall in England and Wales at the end of March, with arrivals peaking during the first half of April.

Average arrival dates are remarkably consistent across wide areas – this is a migrant that moves rapidly inland and north to establish breeding territories in birch scrub and open woodland. Males announce ownership of their patch with a sweet, descending song that’s the surest way to separate the species from the similar-looking chiffchaff. For more identification tips, watch the video at www.bto.org/about-birds/bird-id.

SURVEY You can keep up to date with bird migration and submit records of your own sightings at www.birdtrack.org.uk

Q BEHAVIOUR

SUN WORSHIPPERS Our only native venomous reptile, the adder is easiest to spot from March to early May, when freshly emerged adults bask near their ‘hibernacula’ under rocks or in old rabbit holes. They like sunning themselves a split-second slither from cover, partially concealed by an arching canopy of bramble stems or dead bracken. Early-season basking is vital, particularly for the males, devoting much of their energy reserves to forming sperm. If you’re lucky enough to spot an adder, take care not to disturb it.

SURVEY Send adder sightings to the national recording scheme: www.narrs.org.uk/adder.php

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BBC Wildlife

Spring 2015

WILD SPRING

WILDLIFE UPDATES CORNISH PINE MARTEN A pine marten photographed at night in Cornwall in March is south-west England’s first confirmed record since the 1960s. Unlike the pine martens from Scotland due to be translocated to mid-Wales later this year, this one – like the martens at large in the New Forest – was probably released illegally.

Q BEHAVIOUR

DRUMMING UP MATES Stoneflies don’t garner enough attention, says Buglife’s Craig Macadam. Not only do these primitive aquatic insects act as excellent indicators of clean waterways (because they are so intolerant of pollution) – the nymphs are also a major food for grey wagtails, common sandpipers, dippers and fish such as trout.

In April the nymphs climb out of the water to moult, and the newly hatched adults deploy a method of finding a mate unique among insects. The winged female (pictured) drums on gravel or twigs, the wingless male replies, and the pair locate each other by triangulation, even over the sound of rushing water.

FIND OUT MORE To learn more about stoneflies, m TWEET OF THE DAY http://bbc.in/1ffQ4cO

visit www.buglife.org.uk/bugs-and-habitats

GOOD NEWS FOR BLUES One of our rarest and most spectacular insects, the blue ground beetle (below), has been discovered at Coed Maesmelin, an ancient wood in South Wales owned by the Woodland Trust. Its only other populations are found in Devon and Cornwall.

CHOUGHED CHOUGH The chough is the latest British corvid to master seedfeeders. A male at the RSPB’s South Stack reserve on Anglesey has worked out how to cling on to extract sunflower hearts, though his mate has yet to nail the trick.

Q CONSERVATION

HELP FOR HEDGEHOGS There’s no better symbol for grassroots conservation than the hedgehog. Now, building on the success of two community projects launched in 2013, in which residents of Bridport in Dorset and Solihull in the West Midlands worked to make them more hedgehog-friendly, the latter project has been expanded to become the country’s first dedicated ‘hedgehog improvement area’.

Key aims include establishing an 89ha sanctuary from which hedgehogs can disperse, and improving habitat connectivity between green spaces.

GET INVOLVED Take part

BUTTERFLY COLONIST? Summer 2014 saw an unprecedented series of butterfly immigrations, including the UK’s first scarce, or yellow-legged, tortoiseshells since 1953.

In March conservationists’ wildest dreams were answered when, against all odds, several adults (below) successfully emerged from hibernation.

Could this be the first stage in colonisation?

in Hedgehog Awareness Week (3–9 May): www. britishhedgehogs.org.uk

Spring 2015

BBC Wildlife

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WILD SPRING Q QUESTION OF THE MONTH

Do swallows return to the same nest?

If you’re a swallow, the aphorism ‘home sweet home’ makes perfect sense, says Ben Hoare.

Dale Sutton

M

says Robinson, is that ost songbirds DID YOU KNOW? the construction takes use a nest for Q A swallow’s typical a lot of effort, requiring just a single lifespan is 2–3 years, an average of 1,300 clutch or season, then but the oldest known trips to gather enough build a new one – if ringed bird was 11. pellets of material. they survive to breed Q Over two million swallows have been Moreover, in her classic again. But one study ringed in Britain and 2006 monograph The showed that most Ireland. Recoveries of Barn Swallow, Angela swallows returned ringed birds show that Turner cites a Danish to the same colony, most first-years return within a few kilometres study that found males with 44 per cent of of where they hatched. typically do around a pairs reoccupying the quarter of the work, same nest. “This is with the most attractive, longestremarkable given the length of a tailed individuals being the least swallow’s return migration from helpful to their mates. its wintering grounds in South As a result, it’s well worth Africa,” says Rob Robinson, returning to last year’s nest rather associate director of research at than starting afresh, especially the BTO. Robinson has studied if you’re a female that has just this iconic species’ unusually + FIND OUT MORE flown 10,000km from Africa strong nest-faithfulness, a Listen to and is now using up valuable fat phenomenon called philopatry. swallows reserves to form a clutch of four What’s so special about the on Tweet of the Day: www.bbc.co.uk/ or five eggs. A good nest may be scruffy-looking mud-and-saliva reused for 10–15 years by a series programmes/ cups that swallows plaster to b038qj1l of different pairs. beams and walls? The answer,

Naturalists as long ago as Pliny have observed how swallows instinctively build their nests from mud.

Q THREE OF A KIND

Illustrations by Chris Shields (not to scale)

GREEN SPIDERS Most of us can identify garden orbweb spiders and perhaps a few others, but Britain’s spider list extends to an extraordinary 648 species. Some are strikingly colourful – amply demonstrated by this green trio, all active now.

Spring 2015

Cucumber spider

Green huntsman

ARANIELLA CUCURBITINA

MICROMMATA VIRESCENS

Pale crab spider MISUMENA VATIA

Common. Spins a web among leaves in hedges or woodland edge, where its pealike green abdomen offers camouflage.

Small – females are just 6mm long.

Scarce. Ground ambush predator, mostly in southern woods. Female is green; male, which emerges in summer, has a red-andyellow-striped abdomen. Up to 15mm long.

Common. Sit-and-wait predator that hides in flowers, often in gardens. Can be yellow, white or pink. You’re more likely to spot the rounded, 1cm-long females.

BBC Wildlife

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WILD SPRING Violet oil beetles are a good spring find – look for females crawling across turf or footpaths.

Pronotum Most of the oil beetle’s thorax is hidden – only the shield-like uppermost part, known as the pronotum, is visible. It is square-shaped, and has an indented base.

Wingcases As in many other flightless, ground-living beetles, the toughened wingcases, or elytra, have become very short. Much of the abdomen is thus exposed, instead of being covered.

Q EXPERT BRIEFING

BEHAVIOUR

IN FOCUS OIL BEETLES reshly emerged oil beetles crawling across sun-warmed ground in March or April are as reliable a barometer of spring’s arrival as swallows. Though unusually proportioned to our eyes, these insects are beautifully adapted to their niche in wildflower-rich grasslands, heaths, moors, woods and clifftop turf.

Oil beetles, of which there are five species in the UK, get their name from the toxic secretions that the adults produce as a defence when threatened. They are parasites of solitary (that is, not social-nesting) mining bees, and this trickery depends

From top: Juan Jesus Gonzalez Ahumada; Pascal Goetgheluck/ardea.com; Bob Gibbons; Matt Cole

F

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BBC Wildlife

on the tiny larvae gaining access to the individual eggs of bees developing underground.

The larvae do this by secretly hitching a ride on the hairy backs of the bees, which then involuntarily ferry their passengers back to their nests.

However, the dramatic loss of flowery habitats has led to declines in both the abundance and diversity of our wild bees.

As a result oil beetles have disappeared from much of our countryside.

Abdomen The adult beetles have a large, swollen abdomen – especially the females, which can carry hundreds of eggs at a time.

O Andrew Whitehouse is Buglife’s south-west manager.

Help oil beetles by reporting sightings: www.buglife.org.uk

Spring 2015

Antennae

WILD SPRING

Each antenna has a ‘kink’. The feature is most pronounced in males, which use their antennae during courtship.

LIFE�CYCLE STAGES

Coloration Don’t let the common names of our oil beetles catch you out: violet oil beetles, for instance, can be blue, black or greenish, as well as violet. They also have a lustrous sheen.

1

EGG The adult female (a black oil beetle is shown) lays as many as 1,000 eggs, divided between up to three burrows in bare earth.

2

LARVA Tiny and long-legged ‘triangulins’ (named for their three-clawed feet) gather in flowers to wait for visits from mining bees.

3

PARASITE Each larva rides on the back of a mining bee (a tawny mining bee is pictured) to its nest, where it eats the egg and pollen stores.

Spring 2015

BBC Wildlife

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WILD SPRING Q THE SCIENCE OF NATURE

AMY�JANE BEER’S

NATURE TABLE Uncovering the science of seasonal treasures.

2 GRASS SNAKE SKIN

Illustration by Holly Exley; harvest mouse: JL Klein & ML Hubert/FLPA; cuckoo-spit: Bob Gibbons

We all shed skin but not in such dramatic style as snakes, which cast the whole lot at once in a process known as ecdysis.

The scales that make snake skin so distinctive are plates of keratin, the same tough protein found in hair, horn and nails. At least one moult a year is essential for most individuals, and fast-growing younger specimens may shed four or five times in an active season.

Discarding the old skin is an effective means of casting off parasites and repairing damage.

It also permits growth, though the thin ‘interstitial’ skin that folds between the scales is stretchy. This enables some growth to take place between moults, and accommodates the swelling that follows supersized meals. This same interstitial

b DIDYOU KNOW?

BBC Wildlife

Spring is a great time to search for the beautiful, freshly shed skins of emerging snakes.

through this opening headfirst, leaving the old skin scrunched up like a discarded stocking, sometimes caught among stems of vegetation. Often several snakes visit the same spot to moult – so where you find one, hunt for more. Males undergo an early vanity peel soon after emerging from hibernation,

THE GRASS SNAKE DRAGS ITSELF OUT, LEAVING THE OLD SKIN SCRUNCHED UP LIKE A DISCARDED STOCKING”

`

HARVEST MOUSE NESTS ARE HARD TO SPOT BECAUSE THEY BUILD LIVING HOMES.

A female harvest mouse builds her living nest.

14

skin also means that if you carefully smooth out the delicate, crinkly length of a cast skin, it will be 20 per cent longer than the individual from which it came.

When a moult is imminent, a layer of cells under the old skin fills with an opaque lipid, dulling the reptile’s usual coloration. The clear scales that cover its eyes also cloud over. A small split opens at the front, often helped by the snake rubbing its snout on the ground. It then drags itself out

Britain’s smallest rodent weaves its spherical nest from shreds of vegetation still attached to the stem. This keeps the nest securely suspended in the stalk zone – and because the nest material remains connected to the plant, it stays green and almost impossible to spot. A nest with a visible entrance hole has usually been abandoned.

revealing gleaming new scales like fine enamelware just in time for the spring breeding season.

The skin of a grass snake is distinctive – in the living animal each scale has a pronounced keel, and these show as a ridge in each vacant oval. Also grass snakes, especially females, grow much larger than adders, which are smaller than most people realise.

AMY-JANE BEER is a naturalist and writer. You can join her on our forum at www.discoverwildlife.com/forum

GARDENWATCH Look out for cuckoo-spit, the froghopper’s foamy defence.

The appearance of frothy globs of cuckoo-spit on the tender stems of spring herbage often coincides with the first cuckoos calling, but spitting isn’t among the birds’ ‘antisocial’ behaviour (see p60). In fact each bubble in every foamy mass has been expertly blown out of a bug’s bottom.

Use a grass stem to gently move the bubbles and reveal the creature inside, which is the nymph of a froghopper – the grown-up insect can leap up to 70cm into the air. Both adults and nymphs are sap-suckers, which feed by tapping into plant plumbing with piercing mouthparts modified into a drinking-straw apparatus.

Spring 2015

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WILD SPRING

DISCOVERIES

Written by STUART BLACKMAN

The latest news in scientific research from all over the animal kingdom.

Solvin Zankl/Visuals Unlimited/Corbis

Norwegian lemmings have several ways to warn potential predators that they are in for a fight.

Q LEMMINGS

THE COLOURS OF AGGRESSION HOW NORWEGIAN LEMMINGS TELL THE WORLD THAT THEIR BITE IS AS BAD AS THEIR BARK.

M

any a fanciful story has been told about the Norwegian lemming.

Some of them, such as the one about mass suicidal tendencies, have little to do with reality. But others turn out to be true.

In the 1970s, Swedish biologist Malte Andersson found that Norwegian lemmings are underrepresented in the diet of longtailed skuas compared with other rodents from the same habitat.

He wondered whether their striking orange, white and black fur warns predators to steer clear, much like the black and yellow patterns of many insects.

Four decades on, Andersson

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BBC Wildlife

eat dead ones – but has gathered more DID YOU KNOW? they are very good at evidence. He’s now Q The suicide myth may defending themselves shown that, when a stem from sightings of in other ways. predator approaches, lemmings migrating en “When you Norwegian lemmings masse in an apparently unstoppable tide. approach, they often actually draw attention race towards you and to themselves with loud Q White Wilderness, a 1958 film in Disney’s scream, before lunging barks and screams. In True Life Adventures and trying to bite,” contrast less colourful series, faked a scene Andersson told BBC Alaskan brown of a horde of lemmings Wildlife. “They can lemmings, and other leaping over a cliff. keep a small predator Norwegian rodents, flee at bay. Weasels, stoats, longand hide from danger. tailed skuas, crows and ravens For such brashness to be do sometimes take lemmings, effective, there must be a good but they have respect for them.” reason for predators to think Andersson suspects that the twice about attacking. It’s Norwegian lemming’s warning unlikely that the lemmings are colours are what make their toxic – predators will happily

famous mass migrations so conspicuous. “It probably means that they can move in the open during the day at lower risk than other rodents,” he said.

Warning colours are rare in mammals, and the Norwegian lemming is the only confirmed case among rodents. Andersson suspects there may be another, though. European hamsters stand on their back legs when attacked, which exposes black underparts decorated with white dots. “That’s a very unusual coloration in animals,” he said.

SOURCE Behav. Ecology and Sociobiology LINK http://bit.ly/1xueRBm

Spring 2015

DISCOVERIES A virus has forced this 7-spot ladybird to stand guard over a wasp cocoon.

The

EXPLAINER 6FLHQWLĶF WHUPV SXW LQWR SODLQ (QJOLVK IRU WKH UHVW RI XV

KEYSTONE SPECIES Q CROCODILES

A GAME OF CROCS & OTTERS Q WASPS

Crocodiles and alligators aren’t famous for playfulness, but a recent survey of crocodile experts reveals a host of unpublished observations, involving 10 crocodilian species, indicating an overlooked sense of fun.

Reported behaviours include repeatedly sliding down slippery slopes into water, surfing waves, giving piggyback rides to each other and playing with floating objects for long periods.

There was even an apparent game between river otters and an American alligator. The otters took to splashing water at the alligator, who lunged at them in response. When the alligator actually caught an otter in his jaws, he’d release it unharmed, and the game would continue.

WASP USES VIRUS TO CONTROL HOST A spectacular case of a parasite manipulating its host involves a tiny wasp named Dinocampus coccinellae, which lays its eggs in ladybirds. After eating the ladybird from within, the larva emerges to pupate, and somehow compels its host to stand over it protectively until the adult hatches a week later.

Biologists have now found that the parasite relies on highly specialised assistance.

The wasp harbours a virus, which, once transferred to

the ladybird with the egg, accumulates in the victim’s brain and paralyses it.

Nolwenn Dheilly, one of the scientists involved, said that this is the first demonstration of a third party being involved in behavioural manipulation.

But not, perhaps, the last.

“We strongly believe that such three-way systems are extremely common, and that many parasites use microbes as biological weapons to modify the host to their advantage,” she said.

SOURCE Proc. Royal Society B LINK http://bit.ly/1AzTbVG

Named after the crucial central stone at the apex of a masonry arch, a keystone species is one that plays a pivotal role in the functioning of an ecosystem. Its removal causes dramatic changes.

The term was first applied to the purple sea star, whose predatory behaviour boosts species diversity in Pacific coastal waters. Other examples include prairie dogs (which create specialised habitats), hummingbirds (which pollinate many different trees) and jaguars (which regulate a wide range of mammal populations).

The purple sea star is a keystone species.

SOURCE Animal Behavior and Cognition LINK http://bit.ly/1uwowLq

Q PLANTS

A LOVE NO LONGER LOST

SOURCE The American Naturalist LINK http://bit.ly/1xaHxov

Spring 2015

OF THE MONTH RUBY SEADRAGON

Phyllopteryx dewysea

WHAT IS IT? This is only the third species of seadragon to be described, and the first for 150 years. Seadragons are close relatives of seahorses and share their unconventional mode of reproduction – the male becomes pregnant.

WHERE IS IT? All three seadragons are found only off Southern Australia. It’s remarkable that such a spectacular animal has been missed. This could be because it seems to inhabit deeper waters than the other two, scientists report in the journal Royal Society Open Science. Also the fish appears colourless at depth – its red hue is only obvious at the surface.

Skeletons of the three seadragons – ruby is bottom.

From top: R Dirscherl/Robert Harding; Bert Pijs; Alex Mustard/NPL; Western Australian Museum x4

Two species of fern that went their separate ways 60 million years ago have produced fertile offspring. The tryst – which the scientists behind the discovery compare to a human hybridising with a lemur – took place in the French Pyrenees, and beats the previous record set by two sunfish species that hybridised after 37 million years apart.

NEW SPECIES

17

WILD SPRING

o IN THE FIELD ANT�NEST BEETLES Researcher James A Robertson Current focus The remarkable diversity of ant-nest beetles

Despite appearances this green seaslug was created by nature, not a Photoshop expert.

Q SEASLUGS

EAT YOUR GENES Cross a lettuce with a slug and you might expect the result to look something like the photograph above.

But the similarity turns out to be more than skin deep. Because this seaslug not only looks like a leaf – it can photosynthesise like one, too.

Several species of seaslug are known to steal chloroplasts (the photosynthetic organelles of plants) from the algae that they eat, and incorporate them into their own cells to generate energy from sunlight. Stolen chloroplasts usually stop working after a few days, but in the green seaslug Elysia chlorotica they keep going for months.

The leader of the research, Sidney Pierce of the University of South Florida, told BBC Wildlife Magazine, “There is no way that a chloroplast should be functioning in an animal cell.”

It turns out that E. chlorotica has purloined not only chloroplasts, but also certain crucial genes from the algae that it has spliced into its own chromosomes. “The algal genes are necessary for long-term maintenance and restoration,” said Pierce.

It’s a rare example of gene transfer between complex species.

SOURCE The Biological Bulletin LINK http://bit.ly/1EsKnES

Q ANTS

ANTS TRAVELLED MILES PER GALLEON

SOURCE Marine and Fresh. Res. LINK http://bit.ly/1EsxOcy

SOURCE Molecular Ecology LINK http://bit.ly/1LfxFKY

Q SHARKS

NEW PRESSURE ON GREAT WHITES

18

BBC Wildlife

I study the diversity and evolutionary history of beetles, which make up roughly 25 per cent of all of the known species on Earth. This has taken me to Panama, Peru, Zambia and Papua New Guinea.

What’s your most recent discovery?

An anatomically odd ‘minute hooded beetle’ that I collected in Papua New Guinea. It’s an intermediate form between minute hooded beetles and their closest relatives. As is often the case, we don’t know exactly what we’ve collected until we’re back in the lab, so my celebratory dance had to wait a month.

What are you working on now?

I’m studying Paussus beetles with my colleague Wendy Moore, the quintessential Trojan horses of the insect world. They hack the ants’ communication system to blend into ant society where they are treated as royalty, while preying on the ants. This symbiosis has produced a stunning example of rapid adaptive radiation, on a par with Darwin’s finches.

What’s the best thing about working in the field?

The prospect of finding and collecting my target species, or other unexpected species of interest, is simply thrilling. I am sometimes surprised at the lengths I go to in the hope of collecting rare beetles.

O James A Robertson is a beetle expert at the University of Arizona.

Visit www.elytra.org to find out more.

Spring 2015

From top: Patrick Krug; Andrea Di Giulio; Mark Carwardine/NPL

New research from the western North Atlantic shows that male great whites mature sexually at about 26, and females at around 33 – more than double previous estimates. So the fish’s population growth rates are slower than we thought, making it especially sensitive to overfishing.

Invasive species are nothing new.

According to new research, one of the world’s most problematic and widespread invasive species hitched its first rides around the planet on Spanish galleons.

By comparing the genetics of global populations of the fire ant Solenopsis geminata, researchers have traced their origin to south-western Mexico in the 1500s, when Acapulco was becoming the major trade port linking Europe, the Philippines and the Americas.

From there the species has colonised almost all tropical regions, including Africa, Australia, India and South-East Asia, where the ants cause problems for agriculture and native species.

What do you work on and where?

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WILD SPRING Q CONSERVATION

CONSERVATION

INSIGHT SHORTFIN MAKO THREATENED SPECIES ARE STILL ENDING UP IN OUR RESTAURANTS SAYS ALI HOOD, THE SHARK TRUST’S DIRECTOR OF CONSERVATION. ith a sleek, uncompromising form honed over millennia, the shortfin mako traces its ancestors back to the Cretaceous and is one of the fastest fish in the sea, able to sustain speeds of over 40kph.

But, like those other pelagic sprinters tuna and swordfish, the mako is a trophy fish and high-status seafood – and catches are escalating. Its dorsal fins are prized for shark-fin soup in Asia, and its meat is soaring in value as other big fish decline.

Order ‘swordfish’ in a restaurant, even in Europe, and you may be served mako – its light-coloured flesh is hard to distinguish. And the threat to sharks as a whole is dire. Between 2000 and 2012 global shark landings by the European Union fleet alone exceeded one million tonnes (88 per cent of which was caught in the Atlantic). In some longline-using Atlantic tuna and swordfish fisheries, shark bycatch makes up over 80 per cent of the overall catch.

The shortfin mako is highly vulnerable, evolved to exist in oceans devoid of human

Chris & Monique Fallows/naturepl.com

W

pressure. Late maturity (females don’t breed until about 18 years old and 2.75m long) and limited reproductive capacity leave the species unable to respond fast enough to counter the intensity of modern fishing.

Recent history is littered with dramatic fish declines: the large-bodied skate, angel sharks and sawfish are all on the brink of extinction.

With little to no management the mako could soon follow suit.

We need to stop uncontrolled fishing now. Only a collaboration between the fishing industry, governments and NGOs such as the Shark Trust can secure a sustainable future for sharks and their ecosystems.

BETWEEN 2000 AND 2012 GLOBAL SHARK LANDINGS BY THE EUROPEAN UNION FLEET ALONE EXCEEDED ONE MILLION TONNES.

`

+ FIND OUT MORE Discover how you can help at www.sharktrust.org and www.nolimitsnofuture.org

As an apex predator, the mako shark is at the top of its food-chain. But the species is acutely vulnerable to overfishing.

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BBC Wildlife

Spring 2015

WILD SPRING

FACT FILE

SHORTFIN MAKO ISURUS OXYRINCHUS

HABITAT Open ocean – it’s a highly migratory pelagic predator THREATS Overfishing and lack of management LIFESPAN Up to 30 years

!

IUCN RED LIST STATUS

VULNERABLE

COMPLEMENTS

SHARK AIRING IN MAY READ OUR PREVIEW ON PAGE 100

Spring 2015

BBC Wildlife

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ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

We have tracked Chris for over 60,000 miles – will he make it back ‘home’?

?

WHAT IS THE BTO

The BTO is a charity dedicated to studying all aspects of wild bird life. With the help of over 50,000 volunteer birdwatchers, we provide science to address urgent real-world issues.

We are ‘birds-first’ but use our citizen science expertise in partnership with other organisations to monitor everything from butterflies to badgers.

COPY OF GET YOUR FREE ER MAGAZINE BTO’S VOLUNTE CHRIS THE CUCKOO BELOW: CUCKOO MOVEMENTS

We’ve lost a staggering 72% of Cuckoos in the UK over the last 25 years.

Since 2011 the BTO have been satellite-tracking Cuckoos to find out why. We’ve learnt lots of vital information which will to help save our Cuckoos but, there is still more to discover.

I

n the first year, the BTO fitted five Cuckoos with state of the art tags to enable us to follow the birds as they made their way out of Britain to Africa for the winter.

twice round the world, and taken in 22 different countries along the way!

You can follow Chris, and fifteen other satellite tagged Cuckoos on BTO’s website.

Of those first five, Chris is the only Cuckoo still transmitting live data, far exceeding the expectations of the scientists that are leading the project at the BTO. At the time of writing, he is currently in the Central African Republic on the edge of the rainforest getting ready for the next stage of his migration to West Africa before crossing the Sahara to get ‘home’ again. He has already travelled the equivalent of flying

This yearly magazine is just out. It celebrates the effort of our volunteers and the real difference they make for birds. In this issue we look back on the first 20 years of Garden Bird Watch and the amazing science it has unlocked, explores our woodland soundscapes, and how you can make 2015 the year of the House Martin.

To claim your FREE copy of Volunteer magazine, phone 01842 750050 or email info@ bto.org and quote ‘Wildlife’.

FREE BTO COLLINS GUIDE WHEN YOU JOIN THE BTO TODAY The urgency of our work is growing. With more pressure on our wildlife than ever, knowing where and how biodiversity is being impacted becomes increasingly important. At a time when government funding is being cut, income from individuals is crucial to us. Your fees give us the freedom to do the work that matters most – and to communicate our findings more widely.

With your support we can learn more about our birds and their conservation. As a member you will receive: • A member’s pack to welcome you into our community • A subscription to BTO News magazine, including Volunteer and Annual review issues • 20% discount on BTO training courses to improve your identification, fieldcraft and survey skills and enrich your birdwatching • Monthly e-newsletter with latest news, features and offers • Free gift - the first edition of this brilliant new photographic guide, co-authored by BTO’s Paul Stancliffe (due early June) Membership starts from £2.33 per month.

Simply call 01842 750050 or visit www.bto.org/join

WILD SPRING

WILD AT HEART

Bill Oddie The joys of spring are all the more welcome for being mixed with sadness.

W

ell now, the barnyard is busy in a regular tizzy, And the obvious reason is because of the season, Ma Nature’s lyrical with her yearly miracle, Spring, spring, spring.

Bing Crosby first sang those words about 60 years ago, and unfortunately the following verses feature some of the worst lyrics in the history of popular song.

Illustration by Quinton Winter; Spring Spring Spring lyrics copyright the respective owner

Ah, yes siree, spring discloses, If it’s all one supposes, Wagging tails, rubbing noses, But it’s no bed of roses, And if for the stork you pine, Consider the porcupine, Who longs to cling, Keeping company is tricky, It can get pretty sticky, In the spring, spring, spring.

Euphoric gobbledegook indeed, peddling the cliché that spring is a time of relentless optimism and joy. Yet note the words of caution – “But it’s no bed of roses.”

Primroses, maybe. And lesser celandine, wood anemones, wild garlic and bluebells.

I have delightful memories of them all, but I have also had some sad and distressing springs. So too has nature.

It is in spring that we realise which of our migrant birds have returned in diminishing numbers. In the 1970s we became more and more alarmed as fewer and fewer whitethroats sang their scratchy little songs from local hedgerows. A large proportion of the British breeding population died in the droughts in Africa, and it is only in recent years that numbers have started to recover.

However, many other species continue to be affected by pesticide poisoning, habitat loss, mindless hunting and deadly

weather. Most of this happens in winter, but we see the results in spring. It is perhaps the people who watch and study seabirds who are most nervous. A few years ago wild weather in the Atlantic and the North Sea meant that hundreds of puffins, guillemots and razorbills never made it home. There are few sadder sights than a spring outcrop carpeted in turf and decorated with thrift, but with silent burrows and empty ledges.

My most alarming experience of a ‘silent spring’ was when I arrived on a small Shetland Isle in late May, expecting to be

dive-bombed and deafened by the arctic terns recently returned from wintering in the Antarctic, but there were none. A few days later a few stragglers arrived, but instead of plunge-diving for sandeels in the bay, they took to the fields and began foraging for earthworms. That year the colony raised not a single chick.

They say that worse things happen at sea, but it can also be pretty distressing inland, as when we were filming an item for Springwatch after a winter when a large area of the West Country had been flooded (sound familiar?). The waters had almost abated, but what had been lush meadowland had been reduced to something almost totally lifeless. Vegetation was drained of colour, flattened and clogged with mud. Trees by the river were festooned with detritus up to a height of several feet. There were no birds, flowers or insects. That year spring was drowned.

So how will Ma Nature fare this year? One thing is for sure, we won’t really know until it is nearly summer. Why do you think Springwatch airs in June?

Meanwhile, this is the season when many of us are asked to nominate our personal first sign of spring. Mine is the northern migration of meadow pipits – little brown birds flying over London’s Parliament Hill uttering squeaky calls so high-pitched that I can no longer hear them. A friend points them out, and it makes me joyful. Sadly, no one is likely to write a song about meadow pipits. Unless I do.

The call of Anthus pratensis Awakens my senses.

Yes, it’s spring, spring, spring.

IT IS IN SPRING THAT WE REALISE WHICH OF OUR MIGRANT BIRDS HAVE RETURNED IN DIMINISHING NUMBERS.

Spring 2015

BILL ODDIE OBE presents natural-history programmes for the BBC. He has written this column since 2011 and this is his final instalment. We’d like to thank Bill for his wonderful contribution to the magazine.

BBC Wildlife

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WILD SPRING

If you know a teacher who brings wildlife into their classroom then we want to hear from them.

SCHO O LS ’ DI GITAL WI LD LI F E AWAR D

B

24

BBC Wildlife

Calling all teachers: a new award aims to celebrate the most dynamic wildlife education in British schools.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED... kk YOUR SCHOOL WILDLIFE ZONE

kk INTERNATIONAL CONSERVATION

kk SPECIESSPECIFIC

Your digital project could focus on your school’s wildlife zone, reporting on the different species that live there, the behaviour you’ve seen and any seasonal changes.

You could report on a conservation issue somewhere in the world using research that has been discussed in the classroom – anywhere from Africa to the Antarctic, from rainforest to desert.

Whether you’ve been studying birds, mammals, ocean wildlife or invertebrates, you can create a presentation that looks at groups of animals or even just a single species.

kk LOCAL WILDLIFE Report on a wildlife reserve nearby, local conservation efforts or a specific species that is found in your area.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS • All entries must be submitted by a teacher or representative of the school over 18 years old by 5pm on 3 June 2015.

• Videos must be no longer than three minutes and can be sent via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or posted to us at BBC Wildlife Magazine, Immediate Media Company, 2nd Floor, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol, BS1 3BN on a CD-ROM. • Do use voiceovers, but we want to avoid on-screen presentation. So no pupils should appear in the presentation or video.

•There will be separate awards for Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3.

• Contact Matt Swaine (left) for guidelines on how to make and submit your presentation before getting started.

• Visit www.discoverwildlife.com/competitions to read the rules as well as full terms and conditions.

From top: iStock; Tim Graham/Alamy

BC Wildlife Magazine is on the hunt for schools that are leading the way in natural-history education. Our new Schools’ Digital Wildlife Award will celebrate both the most innovative teachers and the most enthusiastic classrooms around the country.

We are asking classes to submit a digital presentation from the classroom. It could be in the form of a three-minute video or a concise Prezi-style presentation that can combine words, video and pictures (see http://prezi.com). As long as the presentation relates to wildlife, you can choose any topic you like. In fact we’d + FIND OUT MORE like you to be as If your school is creative as possible interested in getting when deciding your involved, email matt. theme, but we’ve swaine@immediate. co.uk for full details suggested some ideas using the subject to help you get started line “Wild Schools”. (see box, right).

NEW WILDLIFE SCHOOL PRIZE

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

NUNAVIK’S BIG THREE

POLAR BEAR

CARIBOU

Discover an authentic Inuit wildlife adventure in Quebec’s Far North

N

unavik is the northernmost region of Quebec. Stretching above the 55th parallel, this 507,000km2 pristine territory bordered by Hudson Bay to the west, Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay to the north and Labrador to the east makes up one third of the province, equal to the size of France.

Here, hidden in the far north of Québec you will find some of the world’s most spectacular and breathtaking scenery. Presenting a remarkable display of truly wild tundra, taiga forest, scenic mountains, majestic rivers and countless lakes. This unspoiled region is the ideal playground for nature lovers in search of a true adventure.

POLAR BEARS, CARIBOU AND MUSKOX ARE NOT THE ONLY CREATURES THAT WILL MAKE A TRIP TO NUNAVIK WORTHWHILE...

Land of the Inuit, a friendly people of many legends, Nunavik is also the realm of some fantastic wildlife, on which the fabled polar bear reigns as king of the Arctic. Out on the land with the Inuit, visitors have the incredible privilege to witness the migration of some of the largest caribou herds left in the world and to contemplate small groups of archaic muskoxen, one of the rare species having survived the ice age.

Although the regions’s so called “Big Three” are sure to excite any wildlife watcher, polar bears, caribou and muskox are not the only creatures that will make a trip to Nunavik worthwhile. An experience in Quebec’s Far North is often filled with a range of wild encounters. Arctic wolves, foxes and hares can also get their share of attention, and let’s not forget the mythical snowy owl and a host of other birds such as Canada geese and eider ducks that bring life to this otherwise quiet haven in summer. A number of Nunavik’s towering cliffs are also home to some of the world’s largest colonies of thick-billed murres.

While out at sea with Inuit, be sure to be on the lookout for various species of whales and seals that live underneath the ice cold waters of Nunavik. They come to the surface to breath, as if popping up to say hello. Groups of prehistoric walrus also hang out in some of the more remote parts. Although they’re clearly not alive, sometimes it feels as though icebergs are morphing into some of the most unexpected shapes right in front of your eyes.

Later in summer, as August settles in and the days start to grow shorter in Nunavik, the chance of seeing the famed aurora borealis increases as night takes over the Arctic sky. The Northern Lights are a genuinely incredible spectacle and they seem to celebrate by dancing from a bright green glow to mesmerising purple shades, like curtains across an open-air stage.

But most of all, venturing north to Nunavik is a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn about the vibrant culture of the Inuit people, and experience their unique way of life.

After all, they are the ones who will open the doors to this fabulous Arctic kingdom, giving you VIP access to a still untamed environment, all the while sharing their traditions every day through story telling, bewitching throat songs and legends they bring to life with soapstone sculptures.

Nunavik: Quebec’s Far North Visit: quebecoriginal.com/nunavik-uk TOUR OPERATORS: Audley Travel Tel: 01993 838 700 Bridge & Wickers Tel: 020 3051 8470 Discover the World Tel: 01737 218 800

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: HEIKO WITTENBORN, ISABELLE DUBOIS, HEIKO WITTENBORN

MUSKOX

LESSONS FROM A

wild EUROPE Europe’s wildlife is on the march as wolves, lynx, bears, beavers and bison reclaim their former haunts. Now this rewilding success offers a compelling vision of how – if attitudes change – big mammals and people could flourish together in Britain. Lenny Antonelli reports.

BBC Wildlife

Klaus Echle/naturepl.com (captive)

That loving feline: the Eurasian lynx is a huge success for the Continent’s conservationists.

Its European population has quadrupled to about 10,000 over the past half-century.

27

SPECIES PROFILE

GREY WOLF POPULATION 1970 14,000 | 2008 16,800 Persecution drove the grey wolf into pockets of Southern and North-East Europe during the 19th century. Today, some estimates put its population on the Continent at well over 16,000.

Legal protection, growing public acceptance and recovering deer populations have all helped to boost numbers. In the east of Europe, wolf populations from the Balkans north through Russia and into Finland are fairly well connected.

But further west, small populations in Germany and Scandinavia are more isolated, while in the Sierra Morena mountains of southern Spain there is just one pack left. Despite this, the species is spreading into many parts of Western Europe. It is legally protected, though some hunting or culling takes place in many countries.

Clockwise from top left: S Widstrand/Wild Wonders of Europe/NPL; Ole Anders/dpa/Corbis; Bernd Rohrschneider/FLPA; S Bartocha/Wild Wonders of Europe/NPL

L

eo Linnartz is searching for phantoms in the forest. The Dutch ecologist is looking for wolves in the Netherlands, a country that doesn’t officially have any, but he’s expecting them any day now. The wolf population in neighbouring Germany is spreading, and it seems only a matter of time before they cross the border.

A lone female wolf has settled less than 30km away inside Germany. Juvenile wolves typically strike out from the pack to claim a territory of their own, often travelling hundreds of kilometres. So if this lone female has pups it’s inevitable that some will slink towards Holland.

Leo’s group Wolves in the Netherlands has set up cameratraps in forests and nature reserves along the border. So far they’ve only captured images of deer and wild boar. But even with several dozen trailcams, the chances of photographing any wolves that cross over are slim. “It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Leo says.

Indeed, wolves have probably already visited the Netherlands. In 2011 motorists captured pictures of a wolf-like animal in the Dutch town of Duiven, but the images weren’t 100 per cent conclusive. That same year a film crew searching for lynx in the Ardennes Mountains of southern Belgium put a camera beside the carcass of a sheep killed the night before. That night they captured footage of it being dragged off by a wolf, the first confirmed in Belgium for over a century.

New wolf packs have also sprung up in Germany, France and Switzerland. And late in 2012 a wolf was 28

BBC Wildlife

Above: wolves are staging a dramatic comeback across Europe – this one is in Bulgaria.

Below: rewilding zones – here the Southern Carpathians – are tourism assets.

found dead in Denmark, the first recorded in the country for 199 years. An autopsy revealed that it died of natural causes. The following year researchers found evidence of 11 male wolves in the country. And if wolves can survive in Denmark’s heavily modified landscape, where can’t they?

Wolves aren’t the only big predator to gain ground in Europe, either. The Eurasian lynx has been spreading too, having been reintroduced to many parts of Central and Eastern Europe. Lone individuals have also been snapped

Spring 2015

REWILDING EUROPE

SPECIES PROFILE

EURASIAN LYNX POPULATION 1900 3,000 | 2003 10,000

by camera-traps for the first time in Bulgaria and Serbia, moving like ghosts in the night.

Most European populations of grey wolf, Eurasian lynx and brown bear are either stable or growing, according to a paper published in the journal Science last December.

Europe has twice as many wolves and 10 times as many brown bears as the lower 48 states of the USA, despite being half the size and more than twice as densely populated – and having much less real wilderness. The little-studied golden jackal is also spreading from the south-east of the Continent.

NEW SPACE FOR WILDLIFE Legal protection is one reason these carnivores are faring so well. They are all protected by the EU’s Habitats Directive and by the Bern Convention. And as Europeans abandon remote rural regions for towns and cities, they are leaving more space behind for wildlife.

Populations of other charismatic mammals such as the European bison (also known as the wisent), wild boar, Eurasian beaver and wolverine have grown

MOST EUROPEAN POPULATIONS OF GREY WOLF, EURASIAN LYNX AND BROWN BEAR ARE EITHER STABLE OR GROWING. Spring 2015

Above: a captivebred lynx, ‘F2’, is released into the Harz Mountains of Germany, wearing a radio-collar to help monitor its movements.

Below: this golden jackal was seen in Bulgaria’s Rhodope Mountains.

At the start of the 20th century, Europe’s largest surviving feline clung on only in isolated, mountainous areas of Eastern Europe, such as the Carpathians and the Balkans. But legal protection and conservation efforts have seen its population quadruple in the past 50 years. This stealthy species is protected across its range, but there is limited hunting in some places, such as Scandinavia. The European population is estimated at 9,000–10,000 individuals; Scandinavia, Finland and the Carpathians are strongholds. Reintroductions have boosted the Alpine population, and the species has also been reintroduced to the Harz Mountains of northern Germany. However, the small, isolated population in the Balkans is sadly still Critically Endangered.

too, according to a recent report. The European bison became extinct in the wild during the 1920s, but after captive-breeding and reintroductions there are now an estimated 2,760 roaming the east of the Continent. The World Wildlife Federation, along with the NGO Rewilding Europe, will release 14 more animals into the T,arcu Mountains of Romania later this year. The ultimate goal is to establish a population of about 500.

The conservation organisation Rewilding Europe is also working to bring back large-scale wild ecosystems in seven other areas, including the vast wetlands of the Danube Delta, the oak woods and rocky heaths of northern Portugal, and the beech forests and mountain pastures of central Italy. The group aims to rewild 1 million ha of land by 2020 – a phenomenally ambitious target that dwarfs comparable projects planned in the UK, even the bigger ones in Scotland managed by Trees for Life or the Scottish Wildlife Trust (see ‘Visions for a wilder Britain’, August 2014).

Rewilding is a controversial new approach to conservation that in essence says humans should step back and let BBC Wildlife

29

REWILDING

SPECIES PROFILE

EUROPEAN BROWN BEAR POPULATION 1970 10,000 | 2008 25,000

From top: Stefano Unterthiner; Maurizio Biancarelli

Brown bears roamed across much of Europe as recently as the 19th century, but deforestation and persecution saw them retreat to strongholds in Scandinavia and isolated mountain ranges further south. However, most populations are now stable or growing, largely thanks to legal protection, and today the Continent has an estimated 17,000 bears.

There are roughly 7,000 bears in the Carpathians and 3,600 in the Balkans, but further west populations are more fragmented. Some, such as those in the Pyrenees and Italy’s Apennines, remain small. Limited hunting is allowed in many parts of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

nature take control. This can mean restoring lost species, but more often than not also more prosaic steps such as letting bark beetles or fire destroy a forest as part of the natural cycle of death and regeneration, or allowing rivers to silt and flood. Rewilding, its proponents say, is cheaper than intensive land management, too.

“It’s incredibly exciting and surprising to see what happens if we step back and become more visitors than managers,” says Frans Schepers, managing director of Rewilding Europe. “We are trying to discover what nature can look like in Europe in a much wilder form.

At the moment there is no single area in Europe where we have a near-complete system – where there are carnivores, herbivores and scavengers in natural densities, interacting with a natural landscape.”

One study says that up to 168,000km2 of European land – an area larger than Greece – may be abandoned 30

BBC Wildlife

Top: a family of brown bears.

Bear watching is big business in Northern Europe.

Above: shepherds are encouraged to keep guard dogs (this one is a Maremmano) to ward off wolves.

by 2030. So the time for rewilding is nigh. In many of the places where Rewilding Europe is working, it is bringing back key herbivores. The group says that the carnivores will spread on their own, as long as we let them.

In Croatia’s Velebit Mountains, which rise from the blue Adriatic into ragged limestone peaks, Rewilding Europe wants to restock depleted local populations of chamois and red deer. The group has bought hunting rights to 17,000ha of land where it can limit Spring 2015

SPECIES PROFILE

EUROPEAN BISON POPULATION 1927 13 | 2010 2,760

S Unterthiner/Wild Wonder of Europe/NPL

The European bison, also known as the wisent, became extinct in the wild during the early 20th century, driven out by habitat destruction, hunting and poaching.

By 1927 there were just 54 captive individuals left.

Captive-breeding and reintroductions saved the magnificent herbivore, and there are now 33 wild herds in Eastern and Central Europe. The biggest group, of roughly 900 animals, is in the ancient Bia owiez ˙a Forest on the border of Poland and Belarus. Europe now has about 2,760 wild bison in all, but though the species is protected throughout its range, it is classified as Vulnerable due to its low genetic diversity and a poor connection between populations.

hunting, release these animals and encourage wildlife watching. “Velebit has all the components needed to be a wilderness, but it could be much more,” says project leader Davor Krmpoti´c, a native of the region.

Emigration has hit Velebit hard. “If you count the people who still live in the mountains of Velebit, you will find that there are fewer there than in the Sahara,” points out Krmpoti´c. But he believes that rewilding can rejuvenate his homeland’s economic fortunes, as well as its ecosystems, by bringing in wildlife tourists.

Rewilding Europe is the biggest NGO in a busy field.

In Germany the Brandenburg Wilderness Foundation is turning vast old military bases near Berlin into forest wilderness. In the west of Ireland the state-owned forestry company Coillte is rewilding pine and spruce plantations in the Nephin Beg Mountains; and in Romania Foundation Conservation Carpathia (FCC) is, with the help of wealthy donors, buying big chunks of land in the Fa˘ga˘ras, Mountains.

By the end of the year FCC hopes to control 25,000ha.

Much of this land is spruce plantations that will be returned Spring 2015

European bison gather at their feeding site in the Bia owiez ˙a Forest in midwinter.

to the wild and ‘naturalised’ in some places by thinning the canopy and introducing native fir, elm and sycamore. In the long term the group aims to create a 200,000ha national park, then donate it to the Romanian people. It’s a similar vision to that of the eco-philanthropist Douglas Tompkins, who has been helping to create a massive reserve in Tierra del Fuego as a gift to the Chilean people.

Christoph Promberger, FCC’s energetic director, is fizzing with enthusiasm. “Our idea is actually to create a national park that eventually – we’re talking about 20 years from now – is so big and so important that we could talk of a European Yellowstone,” he says.

RECREATING AN UNKNOWN PAST But rewilding raises a question: what should we rewild to? There is fierce debate about what Europe looked like before Homo sapiens started shaping the landscape. This centres on whether Europe was mostly a closed canopyforest, or an open mosaic of grassland and woodland.

Proponents of the first theory might be inclined to let abandoned pasture revert to woodland, while proponents of the second might prefer to introduce wild herbivores to keep the landscape open. But rewilding by definition

REWILDING RAISES A QUESTION: WHAT SHOULD WE REWILD TO? THERE IS FIERCE DEBATE ABOUT WHAT EUROPE USED TO LOOK LIKE. BBC Wildlife

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REWILDING EUROPE SPECIES PROFILE

EURASIAN BEAVER POPULATION 1900 700 | 2003 680,000 By the early 20th century, the Eurasian beaver had been driven to the brink of extinction by deforestation and hunting for fur, meat and castoreum, a secretion used in traditional medicines and perfumes.

Just 1,200 individuals remained in isolated populations. But the species has staged a phenomenal comeback, boosted by numerous reintroductions (a far cry from the situation in the British Isles) and also by legal protection. The IUCN estimates its population to be at least 337,500 in Europe, and the species has recovered much of its original range. Limited hunting is allowed in certain countries, such as Sweden and Norway. Since the beaver’s distribution is still patchy in Western and Central Europe, it is expected to keep spreading.

doesn’t have an end goal. Ultimately it’s about bringing back lost species, kickstarting ecological processes and letting nature run its course.

Horses and cattle have also been introduced by Rewilding Europe to some of its project areas. The move has attracted criticism, but the NGO’s Frans Schepers is undaunted: “Some people claim that these are not wild animals but domestic. Yet you could also say that they are rewilded species. What’s the difference if you have herds of horses in a social structure, which are predated by wolves and moving around freely?” The group is currently working with the Tauros Project, which aims to breed cattle that resemble the extinct auroch – the wild precursor to domestic cattle that once roamed Europe and died out there during the 17th century – using genetically similar domestic breeds.

Reintroductions of beavers have taken place in no fewer than 24 other European countries – will Britain catch up?

REINTRODUCTION: EUROPE vs UK The Continent has seen far more reintroductions, albeit not all successful. We compare the situation for four iconic mammals.

SPECIES

RELEASES IN EUROPE

RELEASES IN UK

EUROPEAN BROWN BEAR

Trentino Alps, Italy; Swiss Alps; and French Pyrenees. Opposition from farmers halted Pyrenean programme.

Extinct since around AD 500 (perhaps more recently in Scotland).

No reintroductions likely in near-future.

EURASIAN LYNX

Several in Central Europe since 1970s, including France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia.

Extinct since medieval era. New group the Lynx UK Trust has published a release plan, but will it gain public support?

EURASIAN BEAVER

Many in Europe since the 1920s, including in lowlands, for example in Netherlands, France, Germany and Hungary.

Trial release: Knapdale, Argyll. Unofficial releases: Tayside and River Otter, Devon. Plan for Wales also on table.

Expanding naturally.

No releases to date, but have been mooted for Scandinavia and several other regions.

Extinct since around 1680. Paul Lister hopes to release wolves at his fenced Alladale reserve in the Highlands.

Rémi Masson

GREY WOLF

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CHANCE OF EVER SEEING IN UK

But John Linnell, a carnivore expert at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, argues that Europe will never have enough wilderness for carnivores and herbivores to live more or less unimpeded by humans – the Continent is just too developed. “This is not necessarily a problem,” he adds, “since most Europeans value their modified landscapes. Our goal is just to make these landscapes a little wilder by adding carnivores.”

As carnivores spread, however, they create new conflict with shepherds and their livestock. “Saving species such as wolves from extinction in Europe was relatively easy, whereas learning to live with them is something else,” Linnell says. “Most carnivore populations in the Continent will do fine if we simply give them space, but the question is whether we are willing to do that.”

THE NEED FOR PRAGMATISM He emphasises that public support is vital, because antiwolf campaigns are gaining momentum. But pro-wolf advocates must be pragmatic too, and Linnell says that he is willing to accept limited hunting of carnivores if it helps rural communities co-exist with them.

Conservationists are now encouraging shepherds to embrace age-old methods of guarding their flocks, such as using guard dogs, together with newer ones such as electrified fencing. But convincing struggling rural communities to embrace the wolf is a tough sell. Even so, rewilding advocates believe that ecotourism can bring much-needed cash to remote communities and give locals a livelihood that is based on wildlife rather than threatened by it. Wolf-watching and -tracking holidays

REWILDING ADVOCATES BELIEVE ECOTOURISM CAN GIVE LOCALS A LIVELIHOOD BASED ON WILDLIFE RATHER THAN THREATENED BY IT. Spring 2015

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REWILDING EUROPE OOSTVAARDERSPLASSEN, THE NETHERLANDS This 56,000ha area is grazed by deer and elk, plus Heck cattle and konik ponies (pictured), breeds genetically close to their wild ancestors. It also has wintering wildfowl and waders, plus resident whitetailed eagles, egrets and bitterns.

MAJOR REWILDING PROJECTS IN EUROPE

BRANDENBURG WILDERNESS Near Berlin, the Brandenburg Wilderness Foundation is turning four old military training grounds, totalling 12,700ha, into roadless wildernesses of forests, heaths, bogs and lakes. Germany has now declared that 2 per cent of its national land area will be designated as wilderness zones by 2020.

WILD NEPHIN, IRELAND

M Hamblin/Wild Wonders of Europe/NPL; S Hagolani/Getty; Bernd Rohrschneider/FLPA; Jelger Herder/BuitenBeeld; Grzegorz Lesniewski/NPL; McPhoto/Alamy; A.Cambone/R.Isotti/homoambiens.com; FLPA; S Gillis/Alamy

Ireland’s state-owned forestry company Coillte plans to rewild 4,400ha of pine and spruce plantation in the Nephin Beg Mountains of County Mayo. Over 15 years the project aims to naturalise the forest by thinning the canopy, introducing native trees and closing forest roads. Then Coillte will step out and let nature take over. Wild Nephin adjoins the vast bogland of Ballycroy National Park, and the whole area could become a prime spot for future species reintroductions.

London Amsterdam

Berlin

Paris

KNEPP CASTLE ESTATE, UK One of the few big rewilding schemes in the lowlands of southern England.

The 1,400ha estate is grazed and browsed by introduced red and fallow deer, longhorn cattle and Exmoor ponies, and supports breeding turtle doves and nightingales.

Vienna

KALKALPEN NATIONAL PARK, AUSTRIA The fir, spruce and beech forests of Kalkalpen National Park, which was established in 1997, are home to lynx, brown bears and golden eagles. Over 70 per cent of the park is now managed according to wilderness principles, which means no motorised vehicles can enter, over 250km of roads have now been closed, and bark beetle infestations are allowed to proceed naturally.

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Rome

CENTRAL APENNINES, ITALY Amid limestone mountains, beech forests and alpine pastures, Rewilding Europe hopes to link up three national parks. A key aim is to expand the range of the Marsican (or Apennine) brown bear, a Critically Endangered subspecies. The NGO also wants to develop wildlife tourism in the area.

VELEBIT MOUNTAINS, CROATIA In the Velebit Mountains of Croatia, Rewilding Europe plans to restock populations of red and roe deer and chamois.

The group has also bought hunting rights to 17,000ha of land, where it can release these mammals and encourage wildlife watching in collaboration with local hunters. A recent study also indicates that the ibex (pictured) was once native to the area, which could make future reintroduction possible.

CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS The 1,500km-long Carpathians hold some of Europe’s last big tracts of virgin forest, along with major populations of wolves, lynx and bears. Rewilding Europe is working in the Southern Carpathians – where it is reintroducing bison – and in the east end of the range, while Foundation Conservation Carpathia hopes to create a 200,000ha national park in the Fa ˘ga ˘ras, Mountains of Romania.

The Eurasian lynx has been reintroduced to many parts of Central and Eastern Europe.

are gaining popularity in the Spanish Pyrenees and Sierra de la Culebra, and in the forests of Transylvania in Romania, where people can often spot bears, too.

Africa’s safaris and eco-lodges also provide an example that Europe can learn from. Rewilding Europe is building wildlife-watching huts, and funding small businesses that embrace wildlife tourism – including a horse ranch in Velebit, a wildlife-guiding company in the Apennines, and guesthouses in the Danube Delta and northern Portugal.

FCC is also building wildlife hides, and hoping to open a wilderness lodge too.

PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST

RHODOPE MOUNTAINS, BULGARIA The Rhodope Mountains are a mosaic of forest, scrubland and pasture, home to wolves, brown bears and golden jackals. Rewilding Europe is carrying on previous work that aims to restock populations of fallow and red deer, and to introduce ‘wild’ horses. The group is also working to protect local vultures (an Egyptian vulture is pictured). The aim is to create a natural mix of carnivores, herbivores and scavengers. Hides have been built to encourage wildlife tourism, too.

Spring 2015

Ultimately, if rewilding is to work, locals need to believe in it and benefit from it. “Wilderness has got to be all about people or else it will be seen an elite pursuit,” says Toby Aykroyd of the Wild Europe Initiative, a coalition of groups working in the field. He warns that the opportunity for rewilding won’t last forever. If the price of lamb goes up, for example, people might go running back to their mountain pastures.

Meanwhile the Netherlands now has a national wolf plan, preparing itself for the predators heading towards it.

Looking 20 years ahead, what does Leo Linnartz see in store for wolves in his homeland? “I would expect 5–10 packs to be present in the Netherlands,” he predicts confidently.

For now, though, it’s just a matter of sitting and waiting. The wolves are out there, moving inexorably toward another border that they cannot see, the apex predator of Europe’s new, encroaching wild.

LENNY ANTONELLI is an environmental journalist (www.lenny antonelli.ie). His first book East of Ireland Walks – On River & Canal (Collins Press, £9.99) is out soon.

+ FIND OUT MORE European Wilderness Society www.wilderness-society.org Rewilding Europe www.rewildingeurope.com Wild Europe Initiative www.wildeurope.org

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Brandon Cole

We now know that whales and dolphins are in many ways as sophisticated as primates. They are sensual creatures that use tools, play and grieve, with a keen sense of selfawareness, kinship – and perhaps morals, says Philip Hoare.

THE

NETWORK

Five sperm whales – a mix of adults and juveniles – play together off the coast of Dominica in the Caribbean Sea, rolling around, rubbing each other and vocalising.

WHALES AND DOLPHINS

Herring leap from the water to escape a sophisticated bubble-ring attack by a group of humpbacks in northern Norway.

O

f all the great whales, the sperm whale is the most miraculous example of evolutionary engineering. The species is replete with superlatives. It is the largest predator that has ever lived on Earth. It produces the loudest noise, equivalent to that of a jet engine (see box, p46). It can dive deeper than 1.5km, for up to two hours, and endure water pressure that would swiftly extinguish the life of a human diver. It searches in the Stygian darkness, far from the life-giving rays of the sun.

And even now, in the second decade of the 21st century, we know very little about the sperm whale’s life-cycle, its movements and what it does down there in the ocean’s depths, where it spends 90 per cent of its time. The sperm whale is the star of Herman Melville’s 19th-century novel Moby-Dick. Perhaps the most amazing fact about the species is that the author wrote about his subject “I know him not, and never will” – and that lack of knowledge has persisted ever since.

But our ignorance is at last changing, and changing fast.

Whale science is beginning to address an extraordinary notion, provoked by the sperm whale’s

WHY DOES A SPERM WHALE NEED SUCH A BIG BRAIN? COULD THEY HAVE EVOLVED A CULTURE OF THEIR OWN? 40

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most astounding statistic: that it possesses the largest brain of any living, or extinct, creature, six times the size of ours. In their new book The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins, marine biologists Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell share startling new scientific evidence and theories about the phenomenal intelligence of these animals. They argue that their social behaviour and use of complex communication add up to “non-human culture”. It’s a revolutionary idea, and may yet change the way we think about these remarkable creatures.

MENTAL MYSTERY In itself, the size of the sperm whale’s brain is by no means a measure of intelligence. In the ratio of body to brain mass, the human brain wins out at twice its nearest competitor, that of a bottlenose dolphin. Yet in evolutionary terms, the sperm whale’s massive organ is a mystery. As Whitehead and Rendell note: “Absolute size may be a better general measure of cognitive ability.” They point out that, as with computers, “larger processors generally give more functionality”. Put simply, it is easier for bigger animals to be smarter.

So why would a sperm whale need such a brain, with its heavy demands in terms of calorific energy? Just what is the animal doing with such an asset? Could it be that sperm whales, together with the rest of the toothed cetaceans in the suborder Odontoceti, including orcas and other dolphins, have evolved a culture of their own?

Spring 2015

From top: A Saunders/FLPA; Espen Bergersen/NPL; Alamy; Martin Camm/WAC/NPL

Above: a sperm whale being butchered at a whaling station.

Below: an illustration from Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, which changed people’s views of whales forever.

Below right: the end of whaling began with the North Atlantic right whale.

Anyone who has spent time with whales and dolphins will bear witness to the fact that they appear to behave intelligently. From riding the bow of a boat, to swooping curiously around swimmers, and even, for all its cruelty, performing in an oceanarium – these creatures appear to be imbued with human-like behaviour. Instinctively (and perhaps arrogantly), we believe them to share our characteristics. But do they demonstrate anything other than mere instinct?

We see aspects of communication, social interaction and other seemingly sophisticated nuances in the way that cetaceans behave. They even seem to relate to us.

There are accounts of dolphins ‘saving’ humans from drowning or from shark attacks. YouTube videos appear to show entangled humpback whales, cut free of fishing gear, ‘thanking’ their saviours. The warm waters of San Ignacio lagoon off Baja California have become known as a ‘playground for whales’ due to the overwintering grey whales that solicit physical contact with tourist boats, seemingly relishing the sensation of being rubbed on their barnacled heads and bodies.

Back in the 1960s, John C Lilly, a controversial and radical whale scientist, went further still. He declared ‘dolphinese’ – the system of clicks and whistles used by orcas and other dolphins – to be a language in itself, Spring 2015

CETACEANS AND HUMANS: THE MILESTONES Whales and dolphins have fascinated us for millennia, though modern whale science is barely 40 years old. Here are some of the key events in our relationship with these magnificent mammals.

c.AD 180 ANCIENT RESPECT The Greco-Roman poet Oppian declares that hunting “the kingly dolphins” is immoral, and that these animals were once men who exchanged the land for the sea. “But even now the righteous spirit of men in them preserves human thought and human deeds,” he wrote. Ancient Greeks deem killing a dolphin a crime comparable to homicide, and punishable by death.

1851 NOVEL TREATMENT Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick establishes the modern myth of the whale, but also draws on the latest scientific texts.

There is evidence, too, that he had read Darwin’s early writings. As a result Moby-Dick is still a key text in the natural history of the whale, as well as a meditation on our complicated relationship with cetaceans.

1904 FIRST RIGHTS New Zealand passes the world’s first legislative act to protect an individual cetacean. Pelorus Jack,

a Risso’s dolphin that frequently accompanies ships as a ‘guide’ on voyages between New Zealand’s North and South Islands, is given legal status after a drunken passenger attempts to shoot it.

A £100 fine is imposed on any further infringement of its rights.

1931 SPECIES PROTECTION The North Atlantic right whale becomes the first great whale species to receive legal protection from whaling under the 1931 Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, which takes effect in 1935 (though Japan and the Soviet Union decline to sign it). But the species remains endangered. In 2015 as few as 500 right whales remain, many feeding off the densely populated coasts of New England where they are subject to ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear.

1963 CONTROVERSIAL SCIENCE The Communication Research Institute for the study of dolphins is founded by John C Lilly, prompted by their use with the US military as minesweepers. Lilly proposes ‘dolphinese’ as a language, and argues that the intelligence of cetaceans might even exceed that of human beings – an argument that he somewhat undermines by conducting experiments in which he doses cetaceans with LSD. Continued on p43

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Atlantic spotted dolphins live in schools of up to 100 animals, though around coasts 5–15 is more likely.

From top: Brandon Cole; Ernie Janes/NPL (captive)

and described cetaceans as aliens sharing our planet.

Hal Whitehead, a professor at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, has devoted most of his life to studying sperm whales.

His new book, written with Luke Rendell of the University of St Andrews, advances the debate. They argue that if the social behaviour of cetaceans indicates that they have a culture of their own, then we may have to take seriously the recent proposal that, along with primates, cetaceans should be classed as ‘non-human persons’ – with all the attendant rights that such beings deserve (see box, p44).

It’s a potentially mindboggling notion, but the two authors coolly set out the evidence. They show how cetaceans exhibit “socially learned behaviour” as opposed to mere instinct – the key to their definition of culture. Pre-eminent in their evidence is the beautiful song of the humpback whale.

Ever since the complexities of this haunting sound were discovered by scientists Roger Payne and Scott McVay in the 1960s (see box, p43), humans have been trying to work out why humpbacks should have evolved such a complex, ever-changing mode of expression.

Whitehead and Rendell describe how the fashion for song sequences passes from one group of whales to another. A group of humpbacks studied off the east coast of Australia, for instance, were found to have passed on their song to a group on the western coast.

The authors describe this transfer of song as the first non-human cultural revolution.

WE SEE ASPECTS OF COMMUNICATION, SOCIAL INTERACTION AND OTHER SEEMINGLY SOPHISTICATED NUANCES IN CETACEANS.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SONG These curious bottlenose dolphins are ‘spy-hopping’ – holding their heads out of the water – to look at a boat.

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Whalesong clearly has a function in mating. But it is also a secret code among humpbacks, a call to assemble and an assertion of identity. It says, “We are humpbacks of this tribe.” It is about belonging, and bettering. Singing is the clearest indication we have of cetacean culture, and it’s not limited to humpbacks. Arctic bowhead whales – close cousins of the right whales, and the longest-living mammals on Earth (they can live over 300 years) – have Spring 2015

WHALES AND DOLPHINS These orcas were photographed in the Pacific North-West.

They may be in a family group or ‘matriline’.

CETACEANS AND HUMANS: THE MILESTONES 1966 WHALESONG REVOLUTION

This orca has deliberately beached itself while hunting South American sealion pups in Argentina.

Roger Payne and Scott McVay begin studying humpback whalesong from a recording made by Frank Watlington, a sound designer doing military research into the use of underwater dynamite. Payne and McVay realise that the sounds repeated themselves over long periods of time – which classified them, scientifically, as ‘songs’ – and that they were more complex than those of any other animal.

Roger Payne pats a southern right whale in Argentina.

2003 CULTURAL PROPOSAL 1970 POP PHENOMENON

From top: Brandon Cole; Flip Nicklin/Minden/FLPA; Sylvain Cordier/BIOS/FLPA; c.Magnolia/Everett/REX

Payne releases his album Songs of the Humpback Whale, while Judy Collins releases Whales and Nightingales, which incorporates whalesong with folk song. Both are chart-topping successes, and introduce millions to the concept of whale culture for the first time. Later, in 1978, Kate Bush uses slowed-down whalesong on her debut album, The Kick Inside.

their own tunes, though they’re less sophisticated; Whitehead and Rendell call them folk songs compared with the humpbacks’ sonatas.

There are many more examples of whale culture.

For instance the humpbacks of Cape Cod on the East Coast of the USA, which I have been studying for 15 years now, exhibit their own localised culture. Like all humpbacks, they feed co-operatively by blowing bubble rings in the water to encircle their prey – in this case, football-pitch-sized schools of slender sandeels. Groups of eight whales or more then surface in the middle of the corral to claim their prize.

But researchers at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, Massachusetts, have been studying the Cape Cod population since 1976 in what might be the longest continuously observed cetological project in the world. They have charted the development of a new technique called kick feeding, which the local humpbacks appear to have learned from one another.

The whales slam their tails on the water in a flicking motion, driving the fish into tighter balls that are easier for them to feed upon.

Elsewhere sperm whales have developed their own specialised feeding techniques, as the recent BBC Two series Alaska: Earth’s Frozen Kingdom showed.

There the whales have learned to pick black cod off fishermen’s longlines. They lie in wait, and can even recognise the sounds of individual boat engines. Then they scoop up the catch. “They’re better predators than we are, man,” admits one of the fishermen.

Meanwhile in Shark Bay, off the west coast of Australia, bottlenose dolphins push sea sponges onto their beaks to protect them from sharp or dangerous Spring 2015

1982 WHALING MORATORIUM The International Whaling Commission, meeting in Brighton,

Hal Whitehead publishes Sperm Whales: Social Evolution in the Ocean, which discusses whale culture as expressed by social learning and complicated communication. The book hypothesises that sperm whales’ sense of self-identity and abstract self might even lead them to construct primitive notions of religion.

2010 DECLARATION OF RIGHTS A international group of scientists and conservationists meet in Helsinki to discuss the notion of rights for ‘non-human persons’ such as cetaceans. Their Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans: Whales and Dolphins concludes, “We affirm that all cetaceans as persons have the right to life, liberty and well-being.”

2013 CINEMATIC SUCCESS

agrees a worldwide moratorium on hunting great whales. It is implemented in 1986, but Norway declines to sign the agreement and Japan claims exemptions from it on grounds of scientific research. These anomalies create a tension between whaling and non-whaling interests that continues to the present day.

1988 FROM BAD TO VERSE Heathcote Williams’ Whale Nation, an epic poetic tribute to whales and an exposition of their fate in human hands, is performed on BBC One’s Omnibus. It attracts the biggest TV audience for poetry to date.

The feature-length documentary Blackfish investigates the conditions under which orcas are kept in captivity. The film focuses on a male called Tilikum held by SeaWorld who had been involved in the deaths of three people while in captivity. The documentary shocks audiences around the world, though SeaWorld denies claims made in the film.

2014 UN RESOLUTION The UN Convention on Migratory Species, established to protect wildlife and habitats around the world, resolves that the capture and transportation of cetaceans from the wild should cease. The resolution also agrees, for the first time, that whale and dolphin culture should be taken into account in the BBC Wildlife

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WHALES AND DOLPHINS prey, such as urchins and stingrays. Another bottlenose dolphin community that visits the muddy creeks of South Carolina and Georgia has figured out how to team up to herd mullet into the shallows, whereupon the dolphins beach themselves to catch the cornered fish.

Richard Boll

CULTURAL TRANSMISSION These and other techniques used by whales and dolphins are evidently socially learned. They are passed down the matrilineal lines – all whale society being basically matriarchal – in the same way that we learn from our parents. But, in a yet more sophisticated development, these examples show they are also learned from their peers, as well as from human technology.

We know that individual dolphins have signature whistles; in effect, their ‘names’. But experiments with captive dolphins show that they also mimic each other’s whistles, as if calling to companions. In a paper that was published in 2013, scientist Jason Bruck of the University of Chicago, Illinois, showed that one group of captive bottlenoses could still remember and use the whistles of dolphins from whom they had been separated for 20 years.

Such a memory is key to the perpetuation of culture.

Another striking example of cultural transmission was observed by a project in Australia run by the organisation Whale and Dolphin Conservation and

led by Mike Bossley. The researchers noticed that a captive female bottlenose dolphin from South Australia named Billie, which had learned to ‘tailwalk’ from other captives rather than being taught to do so by humans, then passed on the trick when she was released back into the wild, where the behaviour had never been observed before. Twenty-five years later, members of that pod are still tail-walking, even though Billie herself died in 2009.

There is now empirical evidence, gathered by the US philosopher Thomas White in his 2007 book In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier, to show that bottlenose dolphins demonstrate self-awareness, positive and negative emotions, self-control and a sense of ‘appropriate’ behaviour. Such qualities amount to what White calls “moral standing”, and his logical conclusion is that dolphins therefore have rights.

Could similar assumptions be made about other toothed whales, such as sperm whales and orcas? Whitehead and Rendell have identified five separate clans of sperm whales in the Pacific Ocean. The clans exhibit discrete dialects

THERE IS EVIDENCE THAT DOLPHINS DEMONSTRATE SELF-AWARENESS, POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EMOTIONS AND SELF-CONTROL.

SHOULD CETACEANS HAVE RIGHTS? If we accept that some animals are ‘non-human persons’, then this raises serious questions about their treatment. In December 2014 a landmark court ruling in Argentina declared that an orangutan held in Buenos Aires Zoo should be treated as a person on account of her intelligence, and freed from captivity. This points the way to future challenges for cetaceans, as does 2013’s documentary Blackfish. This film alleges that captive orcas in the SeaWorld chain of dolphinaria have been driven psychotic, and campaigners argue that such conditions would

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not be tolerated for circus animals on land.

One of the most notorious examples of our mistreatment of cetaceans is the dolphin drive at Taiji, a bay on the Japanese coast. Tens of thousands of dolphins are killed for meat here each year, and hundreds more captured alive for export to dolphinaria in the Far East. Meanwhile pilot whales are speared in the Faroe Islands during a seasonal hunt known as ‘The Grind’. In 2013 alone 1,104 pilot whales and 430 whitesided dolphins were killed here, according to official Faroese government statistics.

An art installation on Brighton Beach during WhaleFest 2015 commemorates the 5,500 or so dolphins and whales that have died in captivity.

Spring 2015

WHALES AND DOLPHINS in their communicative click systems, known as codas. These huge groups of whales – which number in their tens of thousands – inter-relate yet do not interbreed. Each clan is conscious of its separate tribal status, as aware of its culture as different human groups are.

THE SECRETS OF A SPERM WHALE’S SONATAS The sperm whale’s organ of sound generation might be the most complex in nature.

A SENSE OF IDENTITY

From top: Toni Angermayer/SPL; Brandon Cole

In the same way, different groups of orcas define themselves by what they eat. One will forage on seals, the other on salmon. So locked-in is this sense of cultural definition that captive mammaleating orcas will starve rather than eat fish. Both orcas and sperm whales use dialects that have been proven not to be genetically inherited, but socially developed. They are familiar with the dialects of other pods “within their community”, as Whitehead and Rendell note, “but they stick to theirs”. This is culture in action – spoken culture, if you will.

Having been echolocated by a sperm whale at close quarters off the islands of the Azores, I can attest to the extraordinary sense of social cohesion that these remarkable animals exhibit. When you are in the water with them, you are aware of the almost telepathic manner in which they communicate, using not only their clicks but their body language too.

I’ve watched a group of sperm whales rolling around one another just below the surface, touching, stroking and even gently biting one

Baleen whales have two nostrils, while toothed whales such as the sperm whale, orca and dolphins possess only a single external nostril. Their second nostril is internal, and adjacent to it is a flap-like organ known as the museau de singe, or ‘monkey’s muzzle’. This is where the sperm whale produces its characteristic clicks. The sound is then sent backwards, through the upper chambers of the whale’s head (or, more properly, its extended nose), which are filled with spermaceti oil that acts as a bio-acoustical conductor of sound. The animal’s enormous concave skull bounces the sound back, through the lower spermaceti chambers and out through the front of the head.

AS THE WHALES SPUN ABOUT ONE ANOTHER IN THEIR DEEP, BLUE WORLD, THE SENSE OF SOCIAL COHESION AND, YES, SENTIENCE WAS PALPABLE. Above: the head of a sperm whale. Adults may reach 45 tonnes.

Left: this pair of humpback whales was photographed in Tonga, the South Pacific Ocean.

+ FIND OUT MORE The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins by Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell (UCP, £24.50). l See footage of sperm whales competing with fishermen on BBC Two’s Alaska: Earth’s Frozen Kingdom at http://bbc. in/1EzME3F

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Biologist Hal Whitehead describes the sperm whale’s vocalisations as “loud, broadband, directional clicks”. Their volume, frequency and range can be altered by the whale, from relatively quiet communicative codas – patterned series of 3–20 or more clicks – to loud, ringing clicks or ‘clangs’ every five to eight seconds, generally made by males on their breeding grounds – Whitehead compares them to the slam of a jailhouse door. It is also thought that sperm whales use extremely loud sounds to stun or even kill prey such as large squid or fish.

another. I’ve seen adult females babysitting other females’ calves in behaviour known as alloparental care, which looks altruistic to human eyes.

As the whales spun about one another in their deep, blue world, the sense of social cohesion and, yes, sentience was palpable – I could almost feel it through the water. It seemed to me to be a demonstration of another culture, no less evident for the fact that I did not understand it: its codes and its nuances, the meanings of its body language and its aural expressions.

Cetaceans are ultimately enigmatic animals, existing in an element that, even now, we humans cannot easily enter, or share. As species, we are forever joined by our common mammalian kinship, yet separated by it too.

As whale science develops, courtesy of the big brains of Whitehead, Rendell and company, we may wonder what the sperm whale’s big brain makes of us. That is the final cultural exchange, and it may be that we will never decipher it.

PHILIP HOARE is the author of Leviathan or, The Whale and The Sea Inside. Visit www.philiphoare.co.uk to find out more.

Spring 2015

REWILDING THE URBAN JUNGLE Urban landscapes and rewilding do not obviously go together.

We may not re-introducing wolves or re-foresting large areas in the middle of our towns and cities a lot can be done to improve the natural world for the benefit of everyone.

That’s where the Environment Trust’s volunteers start. We have in southwest London, helped to restore our degraded rivers, seen the return of water voles, battled invasive plants, replanted natives species and worked so elvers return to freshwater tributaries of the River Thames.

To join this movement volunteer with the Environment Trust. For information about our projects contact the Environment Trust.

Visit www.environmenttrust.co.uk or email: office@environmenttrust.co.uk

AGENDA

1 WE ASKED YOU...

Shibai Xiao/naturepl.com

ii UNDERSTAND THE ISSUES | BE PART OF THE SOLUTION

What is your favourite sign of spring? h FIND OUT WHAT OTHER READERS CHOSE ON P56

The loss and fragmentation of its forest habitats has brought the Hainan gibbon close to extinction.

RAREST APE FACING EXTINCTION HAINAN GIBBON POPULATION HITS AN ALARMING LOW – BUT DO THE CHINESE RECOGNISE THE DANGER?

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he world’s most threatened primate, found only on one island off southern China, is at high risk of extinction if determined action is not taken, say leading conservationists.

A single population of about 25 Hainan gibbons is known to survive, and the group is believed to be restricted to about 15km2 of poor and fragmented forest habitat on Hainan Island.

The population consists of just three social groups, and includes only five known females of breeding age.

Scientists have not given up hope, however. “It is still possible to save the Hainan Spring 2015

industry and hunting pressure. gibbon,” said Samuel Turvey The species survives only in of the Zoological Society of a small part of Bawangling London (ZSL), who co-chaired National Nature Reserve. an international meeting on the Its small population makes species last year. “It is difficult it vulnerable to genetic to identify an optimal target deterioration, which could lead population, but getting numbers to extinction, due to above 100 individuals factors such as random would represent an fluctuations in the sex important milestone.” ratio and the possibility The gibbon numbered of years with limited about 2,000 individuals Total number of gibbon species. availability of food. in the 1950s, but has They are found To increase the been almost wiped out in the rainforests population, fragments due to a sharp decline in of South-East Asia, and are have to be reconnected the extent and condition renowned for both through the creation of forest resulting their melodious of forest corridors in the from clear-cutting, the singing. long term and artificial development of a rubber

14

canopy bridges in the short, Turvey explained.

But doubts persist as to how motivated the Chinese are to conserve the Hainan gibbon, given the loss of the Yangtze river dolphin, or baiji, in the early 2000s. “My impression is that its extinction is not fully accepted or recognised [in China],” Turvey said.

Michael Rank

+ FIND OUT MORE The IUCN Primate Specialist Group: www.primate-sg.org/ hainan_gibbon/

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CAPTIVE DOLPHIN CRUSADE Close all dolphinaria in Europe, campaigners say.

The number of Egyptian vultures in Greece has declined by 95 per cent since the 1980s.

DOGS FIGHT VULTURE THREAT USE OF POISON BAIT COULD MAKE EGYPTIAN VULTURES EXTINCT IN THE BALKANS. onservationists in Greece are using sniffer dogs to tackle the problem of poisoned bait, a major factor in the country’s declining Egyptian vulture population.

The Hellenic Ornithological Society is using the dogs to locate bait used by hunters to control foxes, which take birds such as partridges. The use of poisoned bait has been illegal in Greece since 1993, but the practice persists and has had an impact on carrion-feeders such as Egyptian and the lessthreatened griffon vultures.

Egyptian vultures in Greece have been declining by 7 per cent a year since the 1980s,

From left: Dimitrios Vavylis/Ornithologiki; Born Free Foundation; David Tipling/NPL

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Gavin Maxwell/NPL; Pool/Getty; Bertie Gregory/NPL

CONSERVATION PANDA PLUS The number of wild pandas in China has risen to an estimated 1,864, an increase of 17 per cent in the past decade, according to a survey carried out by the Chinese government. There are now 67 panda reserves, though 46 per cent of pandas live outside of protected areas.

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dropping from 200–250 pairs to just 9 in 2014.

Conservation officer Victoria Saravia said that the scale of the problem has only come to light in recent years. In 2012 a single poisoning episode wiped out a breeding colony of griffon vultures in the north, as well as two pairs of golden eagles.

The Belgian/German shepherd crossbreeds are working in two key breeding locations for vultures: Dadia and Meteora National Parks in north-east and central Greece.

“The dogs will not solve everything, but they are the best option we have,” said Saravia.

“Between March and the end

of 2014, they carried out 90 patrols, finding 27 dead animals and more than 10kg of poisoned bait.” Poison is also used by shepherds to protect flocks from wolves, and by beekeepers to reduce bear attacks.

Sniffer dogs have been used in Spain for a decade, and their use is also being trialled in Bulgaria as part of the same European Commission LIFE project that is funding the work in Greece.

Following the success of the film Blackfish, which highlighted the mistreatment of captive orcas in the US, a new campaign aims to end the keeping of cetaceans in captivity in Europe.

A coalition of animalwelfare groups says that poor welfare standards and the illegal importing of dolphins captured in the wild bring into question the rationale for all of Europe’s 33 dolphinaria.

Daniel Turner, of the Born Free Foundation said there was plenty of evidence to show that captivity compromised dolphins’ physical and mental wellbeing. “We need to assign the keeping of dolphins in boxes to history,” he said.

James Fair

+ FIND OUT MORE

+ TAKE ACTION

Read about the Egyptian vulture conservation project at www.lifeneophron.eu

Find out your MEP’s view: www.europarl.org.uk/ en/your_meps.html

briefing “THE ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE IS A VICIOUS FORM OF CRIMINALITY, PLUNDERING THE NATURAL RESOURCES OF POORER COUNTRIES.” Prince William calls for greater efforts to tackle the illegal trade in ivory.

Spring 2015

AGENDA NEWS

CYPRUS BIRD KILLING

MARK CARWARDINE SINISTER MESSAGE OF BOWHEAD IMAGE

British military asked to do more to prevent the slaughter of songbirds on Cyprus base.

The British military must do more to tackle the illegal hunting of songbirds on their base in southern Cyprus, say experts, as the killing hits a 12-year high.

An estimated 900,000 birds were killed in 2014, three times the recorded number when monitoring began in 2002.

Trappers use acacia scrub cover to attract the birds.

“Planting of extensive stands of this shrub is a highly visible symbol of the trappers’ flagrant disregard for anti-trapping laws,” said BirdLife Cyprus’s Dr Clairie Papazoglou.

The RSPB’s Dr Tim Stowe

Blackcaps are hunted on Cyprus for a dish called ambelopoulia.

welcomed efforts in December to remove acacia scrub, saying: “We believe the scale of illegal trapping requires continuing and sustained action, and we’ll continue to offer our support.”

+ TAKE ACTION Find out about the base’s environmental responsibility: www.sbaadministration.org

ZOOS MAKE US WANT TO BE GOOD

700 The total number of

Zoos and aquariums can help people field conservation projects supported appreciate the importance of biodiversity

by British zoos, with and make them more aware of what an overall financial they can do to help conservation efforts, contribution of £10m. according to a recently published study.

The research, carried out by a sociology lecturer at Warwick University, shows that zoos do change people’s understanding of and attitudes towards wildlife. The study found that evidence of ‘biodiversity understanding’ in the public increased from 69.8 per cent before a visit to 75.1 per cent after, while the proportion of people identifying what they could do to contribute to biodiversity conservation rose from 50.5 to 58.8 per cent.

BALD TRUTHS Bald eagles living around the Great Lakes have some of the highest levels of flame retardants, or PBDEs, of any animal in the world, according to new research. PBDEs were used to stop fires spreading in household items such as sofas, but leach out into the environment and impair development and reproduction in many bird species.

Spring 2015

he recent sighting of a young bowhead whale in Cornwall was about as likely as a great white shark turning up in the River Thames.

But photos of this high Arctic whale, more than 3,000km from its nearest home in West Greenland, just off a beach in the Isles of Scilly proved it beyond doubt. It was the first record of the species in British waters.

The big question is, why did a bowhead whale appear so far south?

It is a natural inhabitant of the frozen north, and normally likes nothing more than being surrounded by ice.

Perhaps it was just a lone wanderer? But my cynical mind has been worrying about more sinister possibilities.

Perhaps, instead, it has something to do with the rapidly disappearing Arctic sea-ice, and the fact that it is melting earlier and freezing later.

It’s certainly not the first time that a whale has wandered off-course in recent years. In May 2010 a grey whale suddenly appeared off the coast of Israel and, exactly three years later, a second individual was seen off

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the coast of Namibia. Grey whales have been extinct in the North Atlantic since the 18th century – and had never before been recorded south of the equator – so the most likely explanation is that these two whales entered the Atlantic from the North Pacific, via the Northwest Passage.

They couldn’t have done that a few years ago because, quite simply,

WHY DID A BOWHEAD WHALE � AN INHABITANT OF THE FROZEN NORTH � APPEAR SO FAR SOUTH? there would have been too much ice for them to get through (unlike bowheads, grey whales don’t like ice).

With less ice they have more options: they can expand their range, for example, or spend longer in their feeding grounds in the Arctic. But that, in turn, could have an impact on bowhead whales that, until now, have had the high Arctic pretty much to themselves.

What is scary is that, as the ice melts, we have virtually no idea about what is likely to happen.

Mark Carwardine is a zoologist, photographer, writer, conservationist and BBC TV presenter.

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SAVING THE WORLD WITH FACEBOOK? CONSERVATIONISTS ARE INCREASINGLY GOING ONLINE TO KICKSTART THEIR CAMPAIGNS, BUT CAN ‘E-PETITIONS’ REALLY HAVE ANY IMPACT? JAMES FAIR REPORTS. hen Studland Bay in Dorset was dropped by the Government as a possible Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ), Neil GarrickMaidment of The Seahorse Trust did something he’d never done before. He set up an online petition.

Studland Bay is the only place in Britain where both spiny and short-snouted seahorses breed, and Garrick-Maidment believes it needs MCZ status to protect them. “I was hoping to get 1,000 signatures,” he says. But GarrickMaidment didn’t get 1,000 signatures – he got over 147,000.

What made it a success is hard to pinpoint, though the fact that The Wildlife Trusts promoted it to their 600,000 members and Chris Packham tweeted it to his 118,000 followers helped.

With Defra consulting on the whole MCZ designation process until mid-April, The Seahorse Trust hopes that the petition will make a difference.

But as with any campaign, one petition isn’t going to save the world. For the past year the blogger and author Mark Avery has been campaigning

From left: Terry Whittaker/NPL; Dan Burton/NPL; Mark Hamblin/2020VISION/NPL

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to ban driven grouse shooting to prevent the persecution of hen harriers. It has involved setting up a petition on the official Government website, which has received 22,106 signatures.

ONLINE POTENTIAL “I was not expecting an instant ban,” says Avery, “but because I put it on the Government website, there has to be a response if it gets more than 10,000 signatures. Somebody somewhere in Defra had to take a small bit of notice.”

Avery believes that many conservation groups have been slow to harness online petitions. The Wildlife Trusts’ Joan Edwards, however, recognises that e-petitions are an easy way for people with a limited amount of time to get involved, but believes there is still an important role for more traditional campaigning.

“One of our most successful campaigns was calling for the Marine Act [which became law in 2009],” she says. “We came up with the idea for ‘petition fish’ with people signing scales. We got 400,000 signatures, and when [then environment secretary] Hilary Benn saw them, he looked at them for five minutes and then said, ‘Wow! How did you get all these?’

Campaigns There’s so can’t just much noise be virtual.

IF IT GETS 10,000 SIGNATURES SOMEBODY IN DEFRA HAS TO TAKE NOTICE...”

`

on social media, you have to do something different.”

Alex Wilks, campaigns director for Avaaz (see box, p53), agrees. “We talk about a ladder of engagement,” he says, “with the bottom rung being signing

an online petition.” But its 41.5 million members in 194 countries are encouraged to climb higher if at all possible.

“We played a big role in getting the temporary EU ban on neonicotinoids,” he says.

“We got 2.6 million signatures on our petition, and we linked up with German beekeepers to put pressure on the German government to back the ban. Tens of thousands of our members wrote letters and phoned the relevant ministries, and that helped swing the government behind the ban, which persuaded other member states to back it.”

Spring 2015

AGENDA ANALYSIS Neil GarrickMaidment diving in Studland Bay, a key breeding site for this spiny seahorse and the focus of an online campaign.

ONLINE PETITIONS HOW TO GET STARTED 5 1

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FIND THE RIGHT WEBSITE

There are a number of online organisations that will host your petition. In the UK these include Avaaz (www.avaaz.org), Care2 (www. care2.com), change.org (www.change.org) and 38 Degrees (www.38degrees.org.uk). Avaaz and 38 Degrees are both proactive groups that launch their own campaigns. Care2 and Change.org are simpler ’platform’ sites. The Government’s site (http://epetitions.direct.gov. uk) is worth investigating, but signatories must either be British citizens or resident in the UK. If 100,000 people back your petition, the issue could be debated in the House of Commons.

There’s nothing really revolutionary about e-petitions, other than that they exploit the speed and access of the internet.

As with traditional paper petitions, they are only the start of a process of effecting change.

In general, it takes more than a few hundred thousand names to persuade any large organisation to change its policy.

+ FIND OUT MORE Mark Avery’s blog http://markavery.info The Seahorse Trust www.theseahorsetrust.org

Spring 2015

2

GET STARTED

3

IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET

All these sites are easy to navigate – look for the tabs saying ‘Start a campaign’ or ‘Start petition’. Then complete the information required for your petition.

To make your petition as effective as possible, it’s important to have a defined ‘target’ – to have in mind a Government minister or department, an MP or perhaps a senior figure in a company or indeed any organisation whom your petition is aimed at.

4

MAKE YOUR PETITION ENGAGING

Writing a petition is like writing a news story for a newspaper or magazine. It has to be snappy and engage the interest of the reader, says Alex Wilks of Avaaz: “People need to understand how citizens coming together can make a difference.” It doesn’t matter if it’s a ‘hot topic’ such as the persecution of hen harriers (below) or something less controversial such as the decline of Britain’s wildflower meadows.

It is also vital that the information you include is accurate. Whatever the petition is about, make sure that you check your facts – what are your sources of information, and how do you know they are reliable?

Putting a time limit on your petition is also a good way to get people to take immediate action, according to Beth Granter of Care2: “People are more likely to sign your petition if there is a deadline.”

5

SHARE IT VIA SOCIAL MEDIA

How are people going to find out about your petition? The best thing you can do is to promote it using social media such as Facebook or Twitter. If somebody then shares it with all their followers, then you massively extend your reach. The website that’s hosting your petition may think it’s a good one and push it out to their membership, too.

BBC Wildlife

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wildlifeletters@ immediate.co.uk or post to Your Feedback, BBC Wildlife Magazine, Immediate Media Company, 2nd Floor, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN * We reserve the right to edit as necessary

LETTER OF THE MONTH Hands up if you want more wildlife in the classroom. Send us a letter to let us know.

PICK OF THE TWEETS Love the feature on political party responses to wildlife issues. Very helpful when deciding who to vote for @evegrace

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House sparrows are perhaps the most cosmopolitan of birds http://ow.ly/Kzuwg @IBIS_journal

I WANT WILDLIFE LESSONS! I agree with Chris Packham (January) and Dr David Glynne Fox’s letter (March): there are some people out there who don’t even know the difference between a male and female blackbird!

Last year at school we only had one nature lesson. It was great, but only one a year?

When my mum was at school they had nature walks in which you would walk around a field and look at flowers and animal tracks.

Also, in my dad’s primary school there was a nature table which had lots of different flowers, plants, fossils, eggs and owl pellets.

Near the village where my school is there are a set of ponds where we could easily go pond-

dipping and the water bailiff lets you feed the fish... but the school doesn’t take us.

My mum buys me this magazine and I learn loads about one of my favourite subjects. I find out about new animals I haven’t heard of before, endangered species, wildlife havens and where to go to see wildlife. This magazine inspired us to go to Arran last summer and we saw golden eagles, otters and grey seals. I find out loads of mind-blowing facts about lots of different animals and I think it’s an absolutely fabulous magazine.

Linus Monaghan, Aged 10

It’s my 24th species of 2015, Trochulus sericeus. Snails with hairy shells! @UKSnailTrail

True manta rays first appeared in the fossil record approx 4.8 million years ago. bit.ly/1C9BMcD @WildlifeMag Follow BBC Wildlife at twitter.com/WildlifeMag

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Spring 2015

YOUR FEEDBACK No more politics I wish you’d ignored the election rather than subjecting us to the weasel-words of the politicians (Agenda Analysis, April). You asked: “What would you do to tackle bovine TB in cattle?” It was the Tories who bowed to pressure and ignored scientific advice to carry out the ineffective cull. “Should the ban on neonicotinoids be made permanent?” The Tories opposed the ban originally.

“Should some marine areas be fully protected reserves?” Mark Carwardine highlighted the Tory government’s halting of marine-reserve designation very early in their rule. Rather than allowing the well-groomed, evasive politicians to pretend to answer the question, I would welcome a reasoned analysis of facts with examples that allow us to judge their record.

David Armitage, Westow

If I were prime minister Loved the ‘If I were prime minister....’ section (Agenda Analysis, April). I particularly agree with Bill Oddie that ministers should be experts in their field. It’s so frustrating to have someone who is genuinely interested in the environment replaced in a reshuffle of the cabinet. The Government must listen to the public, and employ experts in the right fields to allow nature to flourish.

Jackie Clark, Via email

Scotland’s answer The debate about bovine TB goes on after the debacle of the failed badger cull (Agenda Analysis, April). As I was reading the answers to the various questions you put to the parties, it seemed the solution Why is this Surrey grey squirrel an odd colour?

was clear. Scotland has been TBfree since 2009 with four-yearly herd testing – I suppose any herds with TB were destroyed until TB was eradicated. Are the badgers in Scotland also free of TB? If not you would think there would be instances of TB in Scottish cattle if badgers transmit TB to cattle.

This poses another factor in the debate. If the badgers have not been culled or inoculated against TB and they are free of TB, does it point to the possibility that cattle contaminate badgers with TB? Do what the Scots did and stop TB in cattle and we’ll stop the needless slaughter of badgers.

Alan Charlton, Via email

Orange squirrel?

I’m the assistant headteacher at Reigate Priory School, Surrey, where we have a family of bright orange squirrels inhabiting some woodland next to our school.

As far as I’m aware they are grey squirrels. I know that some species of animal change their coat during the winter and have seasonal colours, but these squirrels have had their unique colouring since birth. I tried to do some research but haven’t found any cases of bright orange squirrels. What do you think?

Ollie Williams, Via email Marina Pacheco of the Mammal Society says: It’s common to see pale or reddish grey squirrels like yours – or, indeed, greyish red squirrels. The coloration is partly genetic, so there may be local clusters of a particular colour.

Electric woodpecker I really enjoyed the Q&A on why woodpeckers don’t get headaches in your new-look Wild section (April). I once located a great spotted woodpecker hammering on the leg of a steel electricity pylon at Allerthorpe Common, East Yorkshire. The sound really resonated – it was much more effective than using a tree!

Chris Gee, Via email

Farewell to Mabey I am sorry to read that Richard Mabey has written his final Spring 2015

WILDLIFE BATIK This giant batik was We’d love to hear designed and created about other schools’ by the Key Stage 2 wildlife art projects. pupils at St James Church of England Primary School, West Malvern.

The children started to It was entered into the Global create this by drawing and Canvas Competition entitled learning about a host of local ‘We can heal our world’ hosted flora and fauna. In doing so

by The David Shepherd Wildlife their awareness was raised Foundation. Our batik details about the wildlife that we some of the rare and protected have here on our doorstep. wildlife and plants of the Malvern Marie-Therese King, Batik artist Hills. It is being taken down to the Natural History Museum Share pictures on our forum: www.discoverwildlife.com later this month for final judging.

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all manner of writing. Recent column for BBC Wildlife favourites include “tufted ducks Magazine (April). I have been patrolling in police-car colours”, a subscriber for several years, “ducks dunking like biscuits in and his column was often the tea” and “Egyptian geese the first page I would turn to. His colour of beans-on-toast throb love of nature and passion for like mad Pharaohs”. Thank you, conservation shone through Richard; it’s quite a legacy. in all of his articles. I enjoyed Nicola Chester, Via email his writing, and found it to be thoughtprovoking and Religion occasionally and nature controversial.

Your April I hope that he cover asked if will be able to religion could return and write be nature’s the occasional unlikely article. I also saviour. The hope, like conservation Richard, that movement has the magazine already realised will find a place that it cannot We hope Richard will return with features for exploring undertake in the near future. the links biodiversity between nature conservation and culture. on its own: Bill Baines, Via email the whole of society needs to be involved. In the USA, EO Wilson recently appealed to churches to Natural legacy provoke an uprising of concern Over a decade ago I answered in the face of the climate crisis.

Richard Mabey’s call to nature For over 30 years A Rocha, writers and won BBC Wildlife an international Christian Magazine’s Nature Writer of conservation organisation, has the Year Award. I went on to been protecting species and write a nature column for my habitats through communities local newspaper and another of different faiths who depend for the RSPB’s magazine on some of the world’s most Nature’s Home. I now run wild threatened habitats. These range writing workshops for children, from the dry forests of Peru to where we invite nature into our the rainforests of Ghana. In the language, inventing crazy but UK we are engaged with the effective images that work in BBC Wildlife

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YOUR FEEDBACK Government and NGOs to realise the value of a faith-based response to the environment.

Barbara Mearns, A Rocha

Broader horizons I am a recent convert to BBC Wildlife Magazine who previously read a birding magazine. The switch was symbolic of wanting to broaden my horizons from birder to all-round naturalist. But what are the best field guides to the mammals of Britain and Europe? One published in the same manner as the Collins Bird Guides would be ideal. For now BBC Wildlife is giving me all the reference I need. Thank you!

Paul Stamper, Liverpool Features editor Ben Hoare says: Field guides to European mammals have long lagged behind those about birds, insects and other groups. But the best is probably Mammals of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East by AJ MitchellJones et al. (Bloomsbury, £24.99).

Help! I need more birds

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Ben Hoare says: Having nesting house sparrows is not to be sneezed at nowadays, due to their national decline, so don’t be too despondent! And in mild winters like the last one no one gets as many birds such as tits, finches or redwings in their garden, because they tend to stay in the wider countryside where there is still plenty of food.

Weasel antics If you are going to write anything about the picture of a weasel apparently riding a flying woodpecker that recently took the internet by storm, you might want to refer to the great Romany of the BBC who described a similar incident in his book Out with Romany Again (left).

Martin Wainwright, Via email

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WE ASKED YOU...

A mallard duckling.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SIGN OF SPRING? @flathooves Blossom on the trees :) #SignsOfSpring

flowering; bees, butterflies and bumblebees on flowers; and birds making nests.

Meghan Holmwood Seeing ducklings and other new lives being born!

Feels like nature is coming back to life after winter.

@BARMYCAT Hedgehogs visiting again after hibernation.

TheArtofNature Spring is my favourite season, and when I hear the first stream of jumbled whistles, rattles and squeaks from the song thrush, I know it has arrived. @Portraitsnature Wheatears and ospreys are my favourite signs.

Glenn Gregory I like everything: birds singing for territory and mates; plants and trees blossoming; bluebells mass

Andean Wildlife Project Spring? We are homesick today as a friend has just sent us a photograph of snowdrops in our favourite wood in Leicestershire. We are in Argentina and it is autumn here. Yesterday we watched some pectoral sandpipers almost in their breeding plumage.

Kirsten Adams Lambs and daffodils. @BirdgirlUK Great crested grebe doing their mating dance.

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Why don’t I have lots of bird species visiting my garden? I live in a midterrace on the outskirts of Derby with parks nearby. My

garden is relatively small but there are flowerbeds, shrubs and bushes each side – and a small pond. I also have a variety of birdfeeders. There is a good population of sparrows, and I see the odd blackbird and robin, but blue tits flit onto the nuts and flit straight off again without feeding. I don’t see other species such as finches or great tits.

Sharon Oakes, Via email

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ALASKAN BROWN BEARS Millions watch the webcams, yet conflict grows. Is America loving bears to death?

BRITISH BUTTERFLIES

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How butterflying in the UK has gone from collecting mania to cutting-edge science

No birds are more intensively studied, yet face such dramatic threats

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Raising AN ALIEN Why would a tiny reed warbler hatch and raise this relatively huge cuckoo chick? It’s the result of an evolutionary arms race that has seen the invention of ever more ingenious ways for parasites to stay a step ahead of their hosts, says Nick Davies.

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COMPLEMENTS

LIVING WORLD BROADCAST ON

This reed warbler is feeding a crane fly to a young cuckoo.

Cuckoos that parasitise reed warblers lay eggs of the same colour as their victims’.

Spring 2015

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Cuckoos can be seen throughout the UK, but are declining. The adults specialise in feeding on hairy caterpillars, which most other birds avoid.

O

ur harbinger of spring, the common or Eurasian cuckoo, is surely nature’s most notorious cheat. At each nest she parasitises, the female cuckoo lays just one egg. Soon after it hatches, the cuckoo chick ejects the remaining host eggs and any host young out of the nest. It’s a brutal act of survival, first described in 1788 by scientist and ‘father of immunology’ Edward Jenner, that has fascinated, thrilled and disgusted naturalists ever since.

Every summer, thousands of small birds will have their eggs and chicks tossed aside by young cuckoos in this way.

They are then doomed to spend the next few weeks raising a hungry cuckoo chick rather than a brood of their own. How do cuckoos get away with such outrageous behaviour?

The potential advantage to the common cuckoo of being a parasite is clear. Freedom from physically demanding parental duties should enable it to lay more eggs each summer. Indeed, Darwin suggested that this is why parasitic behaviour might evolve from parental ancestry by the process of natural selection.

Not all cuckoos are parasites, however. We now know that only 40 per cent of the 140 species of cuckoo around the world are parasites; the rest build nests and raise their own young just like most birds do.

Study of the cuckoo family tree shows that parasitic behaviour

WHEN A LITTLE REED WARBLER FEEDS A HUGE CUCKOO CHICK IT MAKES YOU WONDER WHY THE HOSTS SEEM SO STUPID. 62

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in these birds has evolved independently three times from parental cuckoo ancestors: in New World cuckoos; in crested cuckoos (which include the spectacular-looking great spotted cuckoo of Southern Europe); and in our own common cuckoo and its relatives. And parasitic cuckoos are indeed prolific – the record number of eggs laid by a female common cuckoo in one season is 25, which is four or five times more than a parental cuckoo species.

But why do the hosts accept cuckoo eggs and chicks?

Darwin’s answer was that they are tricked. “Wonderful and admirable as most instincts are,” he wrote, “yet they cannot be considered as absolutely perfect; there is a constant struggle going on throughout nature between the instinct of the one to escape its enemy and of the other to secure its prey.”

A 30�YEAR INVESTIGATION In theory, then, there should be an evolutionary arms race in which hosts evolve better defences against cuckoos, and cuckoos in turn evolve better trickery. But the sight of a little reed warbler feeding a huge cuckoo chick, as seen in the photograph on pp60–61, makes you wonder why the hosts are apparently so stupid. Do they have any defences against cuckoos? For the past 30 years my colleagues and I have been studying this question using field experiments.

Every summer still brings new surprises.

Over 100 years ago, egg collectors already knew that there are several races of common cuckoo. Each specialises in a particular host species, and lays a distinctive egg type that tends to match the host’s eggs. For example, in the Spring 2015

CUCKOOS UK two favourite hosts are the reed warbler in marshland and the meadow pipit in moorland. Cuckoos specialising in reed warblers lay a greenish egg while those specialising in meadow pipits lay a brownish one, corresponding to the colours their hosts use.

Across Europe, there are some 15 races of cuckoos.

Recent studies have shown that there are genetic differences between them, so they are rather like subspecies of the common cuckoo but all of similar appearance, with pale bluish-grey adults and finely barred rufous juveniles. (Some adult females have a reddish-brown plumage known as hepatic, resembling juveniles – the significance of this plumage morph will become clear later.)

MIMICRY UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

Above: when hatched the cuckoo chick pushes out all of the other eggs.

Left: a cuckoo egg among a clutch of dunnock eggs. Dunnocks do not react to any differences in egg colour or markings.

Clockwise from left: Mark Hamblin; Oldrich Mikulica; John Mason/ardea.com; Henny Brandsma/Buiten-Beeld

Young cuckoos use their cries to trick their host parents.

Spring 2015

My fellow researcher Michael Brooke and I decided to test whether the cuckoo’s egg mimicry evolved to deceive its hosts. We carried out experiments (under licence) in which we ourselves played the part of the cuckoo, by putting model eggs into host nests. The models were the same size as real cuckoo eggs, and we painted them various colours to represent the range laid by the different cuckoo races.

We began by studying reed warblers at Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve in Cambridgeshire, and found that they rejected 70 per cent of the model eggs that differed in appearance from their own. These were often ejected from the nest, but sometimes the warblers deserted and built a new nest, either close by or on top of the ‘parasitised’ clutch.

By contrast, just 3 per cent of our models were rejected when we painted them to match the warblers’ eggs. Clearly the cuckoo’s ‘mimetic’ egg is important for deceiving this host.

We found the same result for other hosts whose cuckoo races have a mimetic egg. Therefore a greenish egg, which works so well for reed warblers, was rejected by meadow pipits, which were most fooled by a brownish egg that matched their own. An exception proved the rule. Dunnocks, a favourite host in woodland and farmland, lay plain blue eggs, yet their cuckoo has a greyish, finely speckled one.

If a female cuckoo is capable of producing mimetic eggs that fool reed warblers, meadow pipits and various other

BEGGING TRICKS A single cuckoo nestling needs as much food as a brood of four reed warblers. So how does it stimulate its hosts to bring enough food?

A cuckoo is much larger than a single reed warbler chick, but an experiment shows that its large size alone is not a sufficient stimulus: when researchers Rebecca Kilner, David Noble and I gave reed warblers a baby blackbird to feed, they brought less food than to a cuckoo chick of the same size.

Further

experiments revealed that the cuckoo’s trick is its remarkably rapid begging call – ‘tsi,tsi,tsi’ – which sounds just like lots of hungry host chicks. When we placed a small loudspeaker next to the blackbird chick and broadcast cuckoo begging calls whenever the reed warblers came to the nest, the reed warblers now brought as much food as they would to a real cuckoo chick.

So female cuckoos use visual trickery to get their eggs accepted, while cuckoo chicks use vocal trickery to ensure that they get sufficient food.

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Clockwise from left: Rolf Nussbaumer/NPL; Andy Rouse/NPL; Ernie Janes/NPL; European Space Agency/SPL; George Ostertag/Alamy; Eric Médard; Alex Hyde/NPL; DK/Getty

CUCKOOS species so successfully, how come she produces such a bad match in the case of dunnocks? Further experiments provided the answer. Dunnocks accepted all of our model eggs, whatever the colour and markings. In the absence of this ability to discriminate, there has been no selection pressure on their cuckoo race to evolve a matching egg.

It therefore seems logical to suggest that dunnocks might be relatively recent victims of cuckoos, which have not yet had time to evolve defences. To test this theory, we put model cuckoo eggs into the nests of species of small bird that were unlikely to have any history of being targeted by cuckoos, because they either nest in small tree holes (which are inaccessible to female cuckoos trying to lay eggs) or raise their young on seeds (which are a poor diet for young cuckoos).

ORDER OF ESCALATION

1

WE HAVE UNCOVERED AN ARMS RACE IN WHICH HOSTS EVOLVE EGG REJECTION, AND CUCKOOS EVOLVE EGG MIMICRY.

Our studies showed that these species, untainted by cuckoos, accepted eggs unlike their own.

This suggests that the starting point for cuckoo hosts in the evolutionary arms race is indeed ‘no egg rejection’, as displayed by dunnocks. If dunnocks ever do start to reject strange-looking eggs, then their race of cuckoo will surely respond in turn.

Redstarts provide a case study of what will happen if dunnocks acquire this skill. In Northern Europe there is a cuckoo race that specialises in parasitising redstarts, which like dunnocks lay plain blue eggs. Redstarts reject eggs unlike their own, so their cuckoo race has evolved a beautiful plain blue egg to match.

Our simple experiments have uncovered an arms race in which hosts evolve egg rejection in response to cuckoos, and cuckoos evolve egg mimicry in reply. But this is not the

Like many cuckoos, the brown-headed cowbird is a brood parasite. Here a young cowbird is being fed by a male northern cardinal (right).

BROOD PARASITES There are about 10,000 species of bird in the world, depending on which taxonomic system you follow. Of these, 102 are ‘obligate brood parasites’: they always lay eggs in the nests of other species. The parasites are: 59 species of cuckoo, 17 species of honeyguide, 20 species of African parasitic finch, 5 species of parasitic cowbird and a single duck – the black-headed duck from South America.

The common cuckoo is the only obligate parasitic bird to occur in the UK. However, in many parental species of bird, females occasionally cheat by ‘egg dumping’: laying a few extra eggs in other nests of their own species.

This often occurs in moorhens, where some females boost their reproductive success by laying a few eggs in a neighbour’s nest before producing a clutch of their own.

MORE ANIMAL ARMS RACES Evolutionary war drives ingenuity at every scale, says Jules Howard.

PAST THE POST: CHEETAH vs GAZELLE 1FIRST Two of the planet’s fastest animals are predator and prey, seemingly locked forever in an evolutionary arms race toward greater and greater speed. Where cheetahs currently have the edge on pace (95kph or so), gazelles pip them on stamina and possess an enhanced knack for dodging and weaving.

2

EYES HAVE IT: SQUID vs SPERM WHALE 2THE The enormous eyes of deep-sea squid including giant squid and the Humboldt squid (right) have long mystified scientists – after all, fish and marine mammals have eyes only a fraction of the size. One hypothesis, tested by researchers at Lund University in Sweden, suggests that they could have developed due to the evolution of a super-predator: the sperm whale.

FOR REINFORCEMENTS: PLANT vs CATERPILLAR 3CALL Plants are anything but victims, for they fight back against herbivores with gusto. One famous example is the toxic compounds in ragwort leaves. The cinnabar moth caterpillar munches ragwort foliage, over time forcing the plant to become ever more toxic in response; it has essentially made ragwort poisonous. In addition, some 64

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3

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bats have wised up – they reduce the intensity of their clicking as they close in on prey, hoping for a sneak attack.

THE SEXES AT WAR: 5 DRAKE vs DUCK trees release chemical compounds that attract parasitic wasps whose larvae feast on caterpillars, while others cultivate viruses that cause caterpillars to explode.

4

HACK ATTACK: BAT vs MOTH

Espionage, double-crossing, evasive action – each night the war between bats and their prey continues. Moths, being top of the list, have evolved a suite of sensory equipment to dodge the echolocating clicks with which bats hunt. Some moth species immediately take to ground upon hearing them, or scramble the bat’s signal by sending their own confusing clicks back. But barbastelle Spring 2015

Arms races also occur between males and females.

Many male ducks have evolved an ‘exploding’ penis that they fire opportunistically into females.

Sadly this behaviour brings with it a black market in sexually transmitted diseases, so to counter this female ducks have evolved a vagina like a maze, which helps block the entry of unwanted male penises.

THE FIRST BATTLE: CYANOBACTERIA 6vs VIRUS The most ancient war is that waged between viruses and bacteria. So complex has this arms race become

that a litre of seawater may contain 10 billion virus particles, each of which aims to break the security codes of bacterial life, hoping to enter and cause havoc. At some point cyanobacteria evolved a ‘kill switch’ to buy some time in this bizarre battle, which is why many algal blooms seem to disappear almost overnight.

COMPETITION: GARTER SNAKE 7vs TOXIC NEWT Amphibians are often well kitted-out when it comes to poison, but some take it to extremes. For example, the rough-skinned newt produces the same toxin as pufferfish, and induces paralysis and death in anyone stupid enough to swallow it. What drove the poor newt to this? Its main predator, the common garter snake. Every time the newts evolve new and highly noxious toxins, the snakes evolve an antidote.

Jules is a naturalist and author.

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CUCKOOS end of the evolutionary battle waged with eggs. Back in 1918 the naturalist Charles Swynnerton suggested that complex markings on the shells of birds’ eggs might be the result of a signature-forgery arms race, in which host eggs evolve ever more distinctive spots and squiggles, and cuckoos then face selection pressure to get better at copying them.

In theory, an egg signature should have three features to make it more recognisable to its rightful owner. First, it should be replicable, with exactly the same markings every time, so there is consistency and little variation within a female’s clutch. Second, it should be individually distinctive, with clear differences between the eggs of different females.

Finally, it should be hard to forge, meaning highly complex.

Recent analysis by Cassie Stoddard, Rebecca Kilner and Christopher Town at the University of Cambridge has shown that these three features are indeed most marked in the eggs of host species that are parasitised by cuckoo races with the best egg mimicry. In Europe these include the great reed warbler and the brambling, both of which have particularly distinctive egg markings. Therefore, in response to cuckoos, hosts evolve not only egg rejection but also better egg signatures to help them detect a foreign egg.

SNEAKY FEMALES For female common cuckoos, expertise at disguising eggs isn’t enough – they are also very secretive. At Wicken Fen each female defends an egg-laying territory containing some 20–40 pairs of reed warblers. She hides away in the bushes, monitoring the progress of her host nests, so that she can time the laying of each egg to coincide with the laying of a host clutch. She lays on alternate days, in the late afternoon.

Having chosen a suitable victim for the day, she glides down to the nest, removes a host egg, sits briefly to lay her own egg, and then flies off – a visit that can take as little as 10 seconds! Is this secrecy and speed also an essential part of the cuckoo’s trickery? We were keen to find out.

A reed warbler feeds a cuckoo chick in a reedbed nest in Norfolk.

From left: Mary Caswell Stoddard/NHM (UK); David Tipling/naturepl.com; Bence Mate/naturepl.com; Tom Charles

SEEING THROUGH A BIRD’S EYES

Researchers have also studied how cuckoos copy the egg patterns of their host species.

We have three cone types in our retinas, whereas birds have four.

They are sensitive to ultraviolet, short (blue), medium (green) and long (red) wavelengths.

Ornithologists Cassie Stoddard and Martin Stevens have assessed the match between cuckoo and host eggs as seen through a bird’s eye. They found that the cuckoo’s colour mimicry covers all of the wavelengths perceived by birds, from ultraviolet through to red.

Furthermore the colour match by a cuckoo race improves with the degree of egg rejection by its host species. Therefore it is host discrimination that drives the perfection of cuckoo egg mimicry.

To find out more about birds’ eggs, visit www.discoverwildlife.com.

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So we placed a wooden model of an adult cuckoo on a reed warbler nest and left it there for several minutes, to simulate a female cuckoo that was slow. The reed warblers often attacked the model cuckoo and made loud, rasping ‘skrr skrr’ alarm calls. We then put a model cuckoo egg in the nest. Once alerted by the sight of a cuckoo, the warblers were now much more likely to reject even wellmatching eggs. So egg mimicry alone is not enough.

During these experiments we noticed that neighbouring reed warblers were often attracted by the alarm calls and came over to inspect the cause of the disturbance. Rose Thorogood, Justin Welbergen and I showed that, after witnessing a cuckoo nearby, reed warblers were much quicker to approach and attack a cuckoo at their own nest, and more likely to reject eggs too. So if a female cuckoo is detected, she risks alerting the whole neighbourhood.

MISTRESSES OF DISGUISE There is yet another twist to the arms race – female common cuckoos come in two plumage types, grey and rufous (or hepatic). Our experiments show that this variation makes it harder for reed warblers to monitor the threat of parasitism.

Having been alerted to a model grey cuckoo at a neighbour’s nest, pairs increased their defences at their own nest, but only against grey cuckoos. Whereas if they’d been alerted to a model rufous cuckoo next door, they increased defences only Spring 2015

against rufous cuckoos. Therefore different guises increase the chance that females slip past host defences undetected.

We are still left with an unsolved puzzle: why are reed warblers so good at recognising a foreign egg but oblivious to a huge cuckoo chick very different from their own in size and appearance? The question has become all the more intriguing since the recent discovery that hosts of two species of Australian cuckoos, little and Horsfield’s bronze-cuckoos, do reject chicks that look different.

And it’s thrilling to see that the bronze-cuckoos have responded by evolving chicks that match the skin coloration and begging calls of their host’s chicks. This arms race is likely to be much older than that between the common cuckoo and its hosts in Europe, which might explain why host defences and mimicry have escalated beyond eggs to the nestling stage.

The case is a salutary reminder that most species of parasitic cuckoo have never been studied. There are undoubtedly many exciting discoveries still to be made. + FIND OUT MORE Nick Davies discussed cuckoo ecology in an episode of Living World: http://bbc. in/1Gz8Urw

+

Above: male cuckoos fighting.

Females also defend territories.

Below: a female cuckoo in reddishbrown hepatic plumage.

NICK DAVIES is professor of behavioural ecology at Cambridge University. His book Cuckoo: Cheating

by Nature (Bloomsbury, £16.99) is out now.

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Symbiotic carnivores PHOTO STO RY

The carnivorous pitcher plants found in the forests of Borneo have evolved incredibly intricate relationships with the species around them, says photographer and scientist Christian Ziegler.

A slug crawls along the rim of a Kinabalu pitcher plant on Mount Kinabalu at approximately 2,900m.

The plant is one of five endemic species here in the genus Nepenthes.

Slugs are potential food for pitcher plants, but the plants can also offer useful habitat (see p76).

P H OTO STO R Y

T BELOW RIGHT The flaskshaped pitcher plant N. ampullaria is a curiosity – it eats plants. The enzymes in its pitcher are best suited to digesting plant material, and the shape of the lid allows small twigs and leaves to fall in.

FAR RIGHT A side view into a pitcher of a Rajah’s pitcher plant N. rajah.

A rich ecosystem forms around the nutrients in the shrew and rat excrement in the pitcher, which is composed of mosquito, fly and beetle larvae.

The tropics can be freezing cold, if you climb high enough. But it’s worth the chill to enjoy incredible views over the north-western part of the island of Borneo. I am hiking towards the summit of Mount Kinabalu, which at 4,095m is the highest peak in South-East Asia. Kinabalu’s forested slopes reach down to tropical lowland forests, but up here, at about 3,500m, a stout, shrubby-looking ‘elfin forest’ no taller than 7–8m clings to the mountainside, ever windswept and often drenched by the rain.

Mount Kinabalu, especially its higher elevations, is also the epicentre of diversity for Asia’s carnivorous pitcher plants. This group of some 150 species in the genus Nepenthes is spread across the continent with a couple of species reaching as far as Northern Australia and Madagascar. Five of the more then 15 Nepenthes species on the mountain are endemic – they are found nowhere else on Earth. Like all of the carnivores in the plant kingdom, pitchers have evolved in very wet, often boggy, environments. Access to nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen is very limited in such habitats, so the ability to generate your own ‘nutrient income’ by capturing and digesting organic matter provides a massive ecological advantage.

For a long time scientists believed that every type of pitcher plant trapped and digested insects in their variously shaped and sized pitchers. However, it turns out that pitchers engage with a vast range of animals in a variety of ways – all with the goal of obtaining a nutritional edge in a very challenging environment.

Some animals in turn have evolved to exploit these pitchers as a resource. As researchers explore more and more of these exciting plant species, we can be sure that they will uncover many more surprises.

PHOTOS BY

THE LOCATION

CHRISTIAN ZIEGLER Christian is a photojournalist specialising in natural history. A tropical ecologist by training, he has worked extensively in rainforests on four continents, and since 2001 has been associate for communication with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Christian also participates in educational initiatives. He lives on the edge of a rainforest in central Panama. www.naturphoto.de

KINABALU PARK Most of the images in this Photo Story were taken in Kinabalu Park, which is located on the west coast of Sabah in the north of Malaysian Borneo. The national park covers 754km2 surrounding Mount Kinabalu, and is a World Heritage Site.

Kinabalu Park contains a wide range of habitats and is a biodiversity hotspot with more than 4,500 species of flora and fauna.

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The Endangered Rajah’s pitcher plant N. rajah is the largest in its genus, containing as much as 3 litres of liquid.

Its lid has nectar glands that attract the tree shrew Tupaia montana (pictured) and nocturnal rats. The small mammals often defecate and urinate over the opening of the pitcher – a valuable source of phosphorus and nitrogen.

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Worker carpenter ants Camponotus schmitzi pull a dead grasshopper out of the liquid of a pitcher belonging to a fanged pitcher plant N. bicalcarata. Such a large prey item would overwhelm the plant’s digestive abilities and cause it to rot. See also p76.

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PHOTO STO RY

Hardwicke’s woolly bat Kerivoula hardwickii uses the pitchers of N. hemsleyana as a day roost.

This is a beautiful example of symbiosis – the pitchers’ shape and very shallow filling of liquid allows the bat to sleep in it without drowning, while the mammal’s excrement supplies welcome nutrients to the plant.

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The fanged pitcher plant N. bicalcarata is found in lowland peat forests in northern Borneo. Some animals have evolved to use its pitchers as a home and hiding place, such as this small land crab.

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P H OTO STO R Y

ABOVE A slug has deposited its drought-sensitive eggs in a large pitcher of the villose pitcher plant N. villosa found at about 3,100m on the slopes of Mount Kinabalu.

BELOW This cross-section of a stem of the fanged pitcher plant N. bicalcarata in Brunei, northwest Borneo, shows carpenter ants Camponotus schmitzi. The plant provides a home to a small colony of ants (up to 30 or so individuals), which keep the chemistry of the pitcher liquid balanced.

ABOVE Pooled water is rare along the very steep slopes of Mount Kinabalu, so it’s no wonder that a few species of frog use pitcher plants as spawning grounds. They have evolved an immunity to the plants’ digestive liquids so that their tadpoles can develop in them. This photo shows a fringed pitcher plant N. tentaculata.

+ FIND OUT MORE To see more of Christian’s spectacular images from Borneo visit www.discoverwildlife.com

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OUR EXPERTS KAREN EMSLIE is a science and nature writer with a penchant for the curious and quirky.

STUART BLACKMAN is a science writer who is mildly obsessed with evolution.

PHIL GATES is a visiting lecturer in botany at the University of Durham.

MIKE TOMS is an author and associate director at the British Trust for Ornithology.

BEN GARROD

Suzi Eszterhas/Minden/FLPA

is an evolutionary biologist who specialises in both primates and skeletons.

DISCOVER

WILDLIFE MORE AMAZING FACTS AT DISCOVERWILDLIFE.COM Q

P R I M AT E S Ian Howard Via email

Can other species learn ‘foreign languages’?

A Possibly. Researchers from the Universities of Zurich and York found that when a group of chimpanzees from the Beekse Bergen Safari Park in the Netherlands moved in with a group of chimpanzees from Edinburgh Zoo, they changed their food grunts to sound more like their new peers. Chimpanzees have special grunts for particular types of foods, and their fellow chimps know exactly what those calls mean. Scientists previously believed that those grunts were fixed within groups, and that chimps (unlike humans) were unable to adapt their language in such a way – but the discovery turns that assumption on its head.

The food grunts produced by the two groups of chimpanzees converged over the course of three years. For example, the grunt for ‘apple’ used by the Dutch chimps in 2010 was only recognisable within the Dutch group. But by 2013 strong friendships between the groups had been formed, and the grunts had changed so that they were recognisable to everyone. The Dutch chimps had learnt to grunt in Scottish. Karen Emslie

EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO

wildquestions@ immediate.co.uk or post to Q&A, BBC Wildlife Magazine, Immediate Media Company, 2nd Floor, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN

Spring 2015

This rescued chimp is ‘pant-hooting’ in a sanctuary in Uganda.

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DISCOVER WILDLIFE Q

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I N V E R T E B R AT E S Michael Harris Via email

Why are some caterpillars plump and smooth, while others are furry and bristly?

A

The caterpillar is the eating and growing stage of a butterfly or moth, and is little more than a cylindrical bag of plant-digesting machinery. Without the wings of the adult to disguise itself or fly away, a caterpillar must use other means to prevent it being eaten by its innumerable avian enemies. There are two body styles at either end of a broad range of caterpillar shapes and sizes. The smooth tubular form of the angle shades moth Phlogophora meticulosa is mottled

drab greys, browns and greens, enabling it to blend in with the curled and discoloured leaves on which it is feeding, hopefully overlooked by visually hunting birds. On the other hand, the bizarre psychedelic monstrosity of the fancily coloured and strikingly tufted caterpillar of the vapourer moth Orgyia antiqua relies on it being as unpalatable as a boot brush should any bird try to swallow it.

Richard Jones Entomologist

THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT THE...

Water shrew

NASTY NIP Water shrews’ saliva contains a venom that subdues their invertebrate prey. Their bite is not powerful enough to fully penetrate human skin, but it can still cause a painful rash.

HOME ALONE Water shrews are unsociable, solitary animals that avoid contact with each other, except when the males leave their territories in search of females.

COLOUR CODE

The vapourer moth’s bristles not only make the caterpillar hard to swallow – they are covered in toxins too.

Q

The water shrew is a member of the sub-family Soricinae, the red-toothed shrews, characterised by the colour of their teeth.

The hue is produced by iron compounds that toughen the enamel.

Stuart Blackman + Visit www.discoverwildlife. com to find out more.

MYTHS

From top: Ingo Arndt/NPL; Alamy; Laurie Campbell

Is it true that foxglove can help some heart conditions?

A The therapeutic effects of extracts of foxglove Digitalis purpurea, which are used to strengthen heartbeat in patients suffering from heart failure, were first described by the doctor and botanist William Withering in 1775. After a herbalist served him with tea that made his heart race, Withering was curious to know which of its 20 herbal ingredients was responsible, so he tested each separately on himself. He identified foxglove leaves as the stimulant and used them with great success to treat patients with congestive heart failure, known as dropsy in his day. His discovery, and his careful clinical testing of the herb, brought him fame and fortune.

The most active compounds in the plant were subsequently identified as digitoxin and digoxin, and the latter is still used to treat heart ailments. Like many herbal extracts it is potentially lethal but therapeutic in carefully controlled low doses. The drugs are still extracted from foxglove plants, though D. lanata is now the source, rather than our native foxglove, because it contains higher concentrations of the active substances. Phil Gates 80

BBC Wildlife

There are about 20 species in the genus Digitalis, all casually known as foxgloves.

Spring 2015

Q

B I R D S Geoff Green Via email

Why are some young birds bigger than their parents?

From top: Martin B Withers/FLPA; J & C Sohns/FLPA

A When newly fledged young are seen feeding alongside their parents, they can appear to be somewhat bigger. Structurally, they aren’t any larger, but their loosely textured plumage makes them seem so. They may also carry greater fat reserves, though these are not noticeable in the field.

Chicks grow remarkably quickly – a young blackcap will leave the nest just 12 days after hatching from its egg – so resources are targeted towards the most important body

components. While the wing feathers needed for flight are fully developed ahead of the chick leaving the nest, the contour feathers that cover the body are not, with only enough developed to provide a loose covering. This means that the contour feathers are less tightly aligned to the body, giving a false impression of size. These feathers will be replaced when the youngster undergoes its first partial moult, which usually happens within a few weeks of leaving the nest. Mike Toms

This photo shows an adult little owl feeding a fledgling – the juvenile is on the left.

WHERE CAN I SEE...

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ATLANTIC WALRUS

Svalbard, Norway Found throughout the Svalbard archipelago, the Atlantic walrus has something of a split personality. The marine mammal is ungainly on land but a svelte, slick swimmer in water.

Spring 2015

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AFRICAN PENGUINS

Cape Town, South Africa Penguins aren’t only found in Antarctica. On sun-drenched Boulders Beach, just outside Cape Town, there’s a colony of 2,000 African penguins.

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COMMON BASILISK

Corcovado NP, Costa Rica Also known as Jesus lizards because of their ability to walk – well, run – on water, basilisks never stray far from a stream or lake. Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica is a good place to start your quest.

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DISCOVER WILDLIFE Keiko, the captive killer whale featured in the film Free Willy – note his drooping fin.

Q

W H A L E S Edward Ross Via email

Why do captive orcas often have drooping dorsal fins?

A

Though drooping dorsal fins are occasionally seen in wild orcas, it does seem more common among captive animals – especially the longer-finned males. It’s not entirely clear why. The fins are supported by a tough protein called collagen, and one possibility is that, because captive animals spend more time at the surface, the protein is exposed to

Q

MYTHS

From top: Marilyn Kazmers/Getty; John Downer/NPL

Do clothes moths only eat clothes?

higher temperatures, which degrades its structure. Dietary differences or reduced blood pressure as a result of lower activity may contribute, too. There is also evidence that, in a confined space, the animals must swim in tight circles, which exerts unnaturally high sideways forces on the fins. SB O To learn more about whales, don’t miss the feature on p38.

These Tineola bisselliella caterpillars wove cocoons from the wool they ate.

A Humans have only been human for a few hundred thousand years, and likely clothed for just 50,000–90,000 years; but clothes moths evolved millions of years ago, and are closely related to the many tiny moth species that still live today in animal or bird nests, eating moulted fur, feathers and the occasional dead nestling. This explains why clothes moths only eat carpets, soft furniture, curtains or clothes made from animal-derived wool or silk, though they also take other fibres if mixes are used in the fabrics, plus eiderdown, feather stuffing, horse-hair packing and fur coats.

Many small brown or grey moth species in the family Tineidae still scavenge in this way, but Tineola bisselliella and Tinea pellionella are almost wholly dependent on clothing. Their high pest status 100 years ago has been reduced by unpalatable man-made fibres, the drying of central heating and the removal of eggs and larvae by vacuuming. RJ 82

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Spring 2015

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Q

GARDENING

How can compost work for wildlife?

A

Composting is central to a good wildlife garden. Even though councils now collect kitchen and garden waste, by putting your peelings and cuttings on the kerbside you are doing yourself out of a valuable resource.

“Anyone can compost and you can keep it very simple, just doing it as and when you can,” says Paul Alexander, head of horticultural and environmental science at the Royal Horticultural Society. “Lots of people get caught up in the dos and don’ts, but these ‘rules’ are based on optimising the process. If you can’t meet them, it simply means that decomposition will be slower.”

Composting not only ticks a sustainability box; since the whole decomposition cycle relies on vigorous plant and animal life, it will also improve the biodiversity of your garden. Peer into the top layer of a nicely sweltering open heap and you’ll see a multitude of busy invertebrates and their predators, which in turn will attract birds and small mammals. Compost heaps also make perfect refuges for species such as toads and slow-worms. Here’s the basics of getting started with your heap, pile or bin.

TO SPOT 4 SPECIES IN YOUR COMPOST HEAP

Toad: DK/Getty; chafer: Chris Shields/Minden/FLPA; centipede: J B Hlidberg/Minden/FLPA; slow worm: K Szabolcs/Minden/FLPA

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ROSE CHAFER BEETLE

COMMON TOAD

With their beautiful, iridescent green colouring, rose chafers are a welcome sight in the garden.

The larvae feed on decaying leaves and vegetable matter, and are common in compost heaps.

Toads are declining in our gardens. A warm, damp compost heap offers an ideal daytime retreat and perfect hibernation site in winter, providing protection from the elements and predators.

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BROWN CENTIPEDE

SLOW�WORM

Centipedes are important predators and are regularly spotted in compost heaps, which they use as a hunting ground for their small invertebrate prey.

Slow-worms often use compost heaps as a breeding ground. Take care when turning or using your heap in summer when females are giving birth, and in winter when they are hibernating.

BBC Wildlife

TYPE OF HEAP

There are three main approaches to compost – black plastic ‘Dalek’ bins; square wooden slatted bins; and open heaps. Each has pros and cons (slatted wooden bins allow greater airflow but are exposed to the elements; Daleks are sealed but can be unsightly; open heaps are messy but attract wildlife), so it’s down to personal preference. “We once compared the resulting compost from all three methods, and found little difference,” says Paul. “Quality is determined more by volume – bigger heaps produce more heat, which aids decomposition.”

Spring 2015

DISCOVER WILDLIFE COMPOST HEAP TIPS l Site your bin on bare earth to

encourage micro-organisms inside.

A concrete base has to be traversed by invertebrates and will become stained if liquid leaches out. l You can site your bin in sun or

shade, though compost in a sealed black plastic bin will warm up more quickly in the sun. Also think about ease of access from your kitchen. l Cover your heap in winter, as

cold rain slows decomposition. l Keep your heap moist in summer.

You can remove the cover to let light summer rain in, or keep it covered and add a little water now and then. l If your compost becomes wet

and sludgy, add more browns. If it’s too dry and fibrous, add more greens. l Don’t include pernicious weeds

l Do include vegetable and garden

waste; manure and straw from herbivorous pets; tea bags; coffee grounds; shredded paper (though scrunched is better because it holds its shape and retains air pockets); hair; eggshells; and wood ash.

Visit www.rhs.org.uk to find out more information.

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PILE IT ON

Anything organic can be composted (with a few exceptions). Aim for a balanced mix of nitrogen-rich greens (grass, vegetable peelings) and carbon-rich browns (stems, cardboard, dead leaves). “Ideally you’d fill your bin in one go, cover it, turn it occasionally and leave it,” says Paul. “But in small gardens this isn’t realistic. Just add to it as and when you can, layering your browns and greens if possible, and keep it covered. Within 12 months it will have decomposed. Turning speeds up the process, but isn’t essential.”

Spring 2015

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HELPING HANDS

If you have a glut of greens, such as grass clippings in summer, you can balance them out with browns such as scrunched newspaper or egg boxes. This will introduce air pockets and prevent your heap from compacting.

The creatures that break down your material will find their own way in, from the microorganisms and bacteria that naturally occur in plant matter to macrofauna such as worms and beetles. “Some people introduce worms, but it’s not necessary,” says Paul. “Plus they won’t hang around if conditions aren’t right.”

4

THE RESULTS

After 12 months, separate out the rotted material – a beautifully rich, fine compost – and spread it over your soil. Anything that’s not broken down can simply go back on the heap. If you have enough space, it’s a good idea to have several bins. When one is full, you can leave the contents to break down and start filling another with fresh matter (chop up woody plant material first). It’s also beneficial to try more than one approach to composting – having an open pile as well as a bin will encourage more wildlife to your garden.

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From left: Clive Nichols/GAP Photos; David Freund/Getty; Sarah Cuttle/GAP Photos; Nigel Cattlin/FLPA; Dave Bevan/NPL

such as couch grass, creeping buttercup and bindweed; meat; bones; dog or cat faeces; cooked food (because this could attract rats); dairy products; fish; or glossy paper (as it has a plastic coating).

DISCOVER WILDLIFE Birds attracted to feeders, such as these starlings, can have far-reaching effects on gardens.

Q

A N AT O M Y Jack Castle Via email

Do any animals snap their bones on purpose?

A

B I R D S Gordon Stamp Via email

Is feeding birds good for my garden?

A

Reading University’s Garden Watch project has been studying the effects of birdfeeders on garden ecology. Not surprisingly, a feeder attracts more birds to a garden, which then also forage in the surrounding vegetation.

One result is that pea aphids, which can wreak havoc with your legumes, are

kept in check around a feeder. Other findings from the project may be a mixed blessing for gardeners, though.

The latest research shows that gardens with feeders host lower numbers of ground beetles, many of which are themselves controllers of ‘pests’ such as slugs and caterpillars. SB

The Iberian ribbed newt uses its ribs as ‘stingers’.

Illustrations by Alan Batley

HOW TO

MAKE YOUR OWN MEASURING QUADRANT Carry out small-scale surveys of local plant life with this simple tool.

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BBC Wildlife

1 Nail four lengths of wood into a simple square (a square photo frame would also do).

2 Divide each length of the frame into equal thirds, and mark these points with a pen.

3 Pin four lengths of string across the frame to divide the quadrant into nine squares.

4 Place the quadrant in random areas of a field and record the flowers square by square.

Spring 2015

From left: Ben Hall/2020VISION/NPL; Chris Mattison/NPL

Q

Bones provide structure, support and strength. They’re our internal framework and stop us looking like a pile of jelly on the floor.

For vertebrates, breaking a bone is usually a serious injury, while fracturing a bone so that it rips through the body is frequently a sure route to infection and death. Yet two species have been observed deliberately snapping their own bones.

The manoeuvre may represent the most extreme method of self-defence in the animal kingdom. Found in Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula, the Iberian ribbed newt Pleurodeles waltl is capable of rotating and pushing its own ribs through its body, passing them through toxic skin glands on the surface. Meanwhile, the aptly named horror frog Trichobatrachus robustus takes this macabre behaviour even further. When threatened, the medium-sized West African frog intentionally breaks bones within its feet and forces the sharpened broken bones and specialised claws through the skin, to inflict injury on any would-be attacker.

Both amphibians are thought to be able to walk away from such interactions and go on to make a full recovery. No one yet knows exactly how the bones are retracted back into the body. Ben Garrod

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Texts charged at your standard rate. Always get the bill payer’s permission. Please add the words NO CONTACT to your message (e.g. CHOCOLATE. NO CONTACT) if you don’t want The Rainforest Foundation UK to contact you about future campaigns on your mobile. Rainforest Foundation UK is a registered charity (1138287).

Illustrations by Danny Allison

BU

COMPLEMENTS

SHARED PLANET BROADCAST ON

Are Britain’s cities

?

G N I Z UZ It’s official: urban areas can be good for pollinators. Kate Bradbury investigates how far gardens, allotments and municipal planting make up for habitat lost to urban sprawl – and reveals how all of us have a part to play.

F

or four years Penny Frith has been visiting Warwick Gardens in Peckham, South-East London.

This small urban park has a playground, dog-free zone, log circle, picnic benches, football pitch, basketball court and table-tennis tables. Her daily visits show that this seemingly unremarkable habitat is buzzing with insect life.

Since 2011 Penny has recorded an astonishing 429 species here, including a myriad bees, wasps, flies, beetles and bugs. Among them is one of London’s few records of the ivy bee, which arrived in Britain from France in 2001 and is steadily colonising southern England.

“Warwick Gardens isn’t the sexiest of parks,” says Penny. “There’s no wildflower meadow or anything like that. In spring we’ve got dandelions and yarrow, a bit of green alkanet, then in summer comfrey, black horehound and thistles appear, but the pollinators love it.”

The park has won a Green Flag Award in the Government scheme recognising well-managed green spaces, and Penny has shown that small changes can make a big difference.

“I persuaded the guy who manages Peckham’s parks to stop mowing a strip of grass, and now you can see jewel wasps here,” says Penny. “They are the most wonderful, colourful, metallic creatures. We’ve got a new edible hedge, so it will be interesting to see what turns up next.”

Warwick Gardens has among the highest recorded numbers of invertebrates of any London park. That’s not because it’s special, but because few people dedicate as much time to photographing invertebrates as Penny does.

“Not a lot of people do insect surveys,” she says. “And those who do miss things. Entomologists are sent on transects to survey specific areas, but they might do it once a week or once every few months. I do it every day of the year.

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Above: urban plantings often mix native British and non-native flowers. This Sheffield meadow features purpleblue Camassia, from US prairies.

Below: a rubytailed wasp, one of 429 species recorded by Penny Frith in an ordinary Peckham park.

“I might see something at 2pm on a Thursday that isn’t there at 3pm on a Friday. There’s no reason why all the pollinators in my park aren’t in every park in London.

People just need to look for them.”

Elsewhere in the capital, two sites owned by Thames Water are proving fantastic habitats for bumblebees.

The company formed a partnership with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in 2012, and is working to make them even better for pollinators. “At Coppermills Water Treatment Works, we encouraged the company to mow certain areas less, and established a wildflower meadow,” says Sam Page of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

SOWING THE RIGHT SPECIES The key to their success was sowing yellow rattle, a semiparasitic plant that suppresses grasses and promotes wildflowers. “When I first did a survey there, I found only three bumblebees. But after sowing yellow rattle I counted lots more wildflowers and 37 bumblebees,” says Sam. “It’s a fantastic turnaround in just over a year. We’ve now recorded eight bumblebee species across the site.”

One of the eight is the brown-banded carder bee, a UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) species that has suffered huge declines in recent years. It now clings on in a few flower-rich habitats in southern England and Wales, mostly along coasts. Yet it’s thriving in Walthamstow, and could spread into the city if people grow the right flower species for this specialist feeder.

“It’s a long-tongued species”, Sam explains.

“In fact all seven BAP bumblebee species in the UK

have long tongues. Their feeding requirements are more specialised than shorter-tongued bumblebees, and they tend to visit a much smaller range of flowers, such as red clover, white dead-nettle and black horehound. So if we want to see more of these bumblebees in cities, those are the plants we really should be planting.”

Slightly further out of London at Thames Water’s Crossness Nature Reserve, Sam has found Britain’s rarest bumblebee, the shrill carder. “It’s brilliant to discover a rare species like this so near the city,” she says. “Finding a rarity always gives conservationists extra impetus. It makes us go the extra mile to provide the right kind of habitat to help the species expand its range. And in the process we give other long-tongued bumblebees a boost, too.”

More and more studies are proving urban habitats to be far better for pollinators than was initially thought. A French study, conducted in and around Lyon last year, concluded that almost a third of France’s 900 wild bee species occur in towns and cities. Looking at 24 sites around the city, scientists recorded 291 bee species, with 60 of them recorded in very urbanised areas and most found in moderately urbanised or suburban places.

A similar British study was conducted by the Urban Pollinators Project, which compared urban areas with farmland and nature reserves across the country. Urban sites came out favourably over farmland, but didn’t match nature reserves in species diversity. Yet overall it found that urban areas can be havens for some pollinators.

Lead researcher Katherine Baldock of the University of Bristol says that, rather than patting ourselves on the back, we should use this information to galvanise councils, Spring 2015

THE POWER OF PATHWAYS Buglife is redressing the loss and fragmentation of flower-rich grasslands by creating a network of flowery pathways linking together existing habitats.

Its B-Lines project will enable pollinators and other wildlife to move around the country, helping them to expand their ranges and adapt to climate change. “We have already started mapping a network of B-Lines, working with Natural England, local authorities and Wildlife Trusts,” explains Matt Shardlow, Buglife’s chief executive.

Rather than farmers establishing flowery field margins where the public might not see the results,

B-Lines are being created along well-trodden coastal paths, taking in cities wherever possible.

“We’re putting wildflowers back into cities, and it works because everyone can actually see what’s going on,” Matt says. “We spend hundreds of millions of pounds on agrienvironment schemes every year, but the average Joe on the street wouldn’t know the first thing about it. In contrast B-Lines are tangible. People know that they are walking through something that they paid for.”

“IT’S BRILLIANT TO FIND THE SHRILL CARDER BEE SO NEAR THE CITY. FINDING A RARITY LIKE THIS GIVES CONSERVATIONISTS EXTRA IMPETUS.”

conservationists and the public to make urban habitats even better for pollinators. “The fact that urban areas support pollinators doesn’t mean that we don’t need rural and natural habitats, and equally it doesn’t mean that we should pave over everything. But it does show us what works for pollinators in cities.”

Clockwise from top left: Paul Hobson; Phil Savoie/naturepl.com; Amanda Hall/Robert Harding; Sue Kennedy/rspb-images.com

CATASTROPHIC DECLINE It’s about time, too. In the last 100 years Britain has lost over 97 per cent of its flower-rich grasslands, and up to 50 per cent of its hedgerows in some areas. Many remaining hedges are so badly managed that their wildlife value is negligible. Intensive agriculture has caused a catastrophic decline in plant and animal biodiversity. To date Britain has lost 4 species of butterfly, 62 species of moth, and 23 bee and wasp species. This was the fate suffered by the short-haired bumblebee, which finally died out here in the 1980s and is now being reintroduced to Kent.

The short-haired bumblebee is another long-tongued species. This group of specialist bumblebees barely features in the Urban Pollinators report. “Our study only found 11 rare pollinators, such as the brown-banded carder bee, and the numbers of rarities we counted were Spring 2015

so small that it was hard to draw conclusions about them,” Katherine explains. “On the whole, though, they were found in nature reserves not cities. So while our data doesn’t prove that urban areas tend to suit unfussy, generalist pollinators better, it’s safe to assume they do.”

But if two rare insects are able to carve out a living on the outskirts of Central London, why isn’t more being done to cater for other rare pollinators in our cities? “All the evidence suggests that the rarities don’t seem to take to urban areas,” says Dave Goulson, author of A Sting in the Tale and co-founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

“In truth I don’t think we entirely know why, but I guess as a rule of thumb they are just too specialised.”

The UK’s seven bumblebees of highest conservation priority mostly live in pockets of habitat on or near nature reserves, together with other UK BAP species including 81 moth and 24 butterfly species. Goulson is proud that a couple of species are bucking the trend in London, but points out that some of the best urban habitats for pollinators are brownfield sites, many of which are earmarked for development.

“If these bees could thrive in gardens, they wouldn’t be rare in the first place,” Dave says. “Having said that, perhaps if we really ‘went to town’ by planting pollinator-

Top left: the shrill carder bee, one of the rarest UK bumblebees, finds a haven on urban nature reserves east of London.

Above: wildflower meadows were a prominent feature of the 2012 Olympic Park in Stratford.

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URBAN POLLINATORS GARDEN PLANTS TO AVOID AT ALL COSTS BEDDING PLANTS Intensively bred annual bedding plants such as petunias and begonias often have little pollen or nectar available to insects. Though commonly used in municipal displays up and down the land, they attract virtually no pollinators. They may make a roundabout or park look pretty, but they are pollinator-deserts.

PLANTS LACED WITH PESTICIDE Neonicotinoid pesticides are often used in soil dressings to kill pests such as vine weevils, and are absorbed by the plants, ending up in the flowers’ pollen and nectar.

Many gardencentre plants have been pre-treated in this way,

so always ask before you buy. And if you do see any on sale, consider taking this up with the manager – customer demand is key to changing habits.

DOUBLE-FLOWERED PLANTS Flowers bred to have more petals than nature intended include roses, dahlias and cherry trees.

Like a closed shop, the extra petals usually mask the reproductive parts of the flower. This makes it impossible for pollinators to access the pollen and nectar that they need within.

friendly flowers and wildflower mixes everywhere in cities, who knows what might happen?” But he adds an important caveat. Despite the Urban Pollinators study confirming that towns and cities have a greater abundance of pollinators than farmland, efforts to cater for bees in cities remain patchy.

“Some cities are great, but you still see an awful lot of dreadful planting,” says Dave. “Bedding plants such as begonias, pansies and busy lizzies have been intensively bred for huge, showy flowers and a long flowering period, but this has made them next to useless for insects. Most have no nectar or no pollen, or are so far from their natural shape that bees can’t enter.

“It infuriates me that councils are spending taxpayers’ money on this. Virtually no insects will go anywhere near these plants. You might just as well have plastic flowers.”

SPECTACLE, NOT BIODIVERSITY Councils also appear more inclined to sow annual wildflower meadows, similar to the spectacular displays gracing the 2012 Olympics site in Stratford, East London.

Redundant patches of grass in parks are sown with annual mixes of cosmos, Mexican hats, calendula and field poppies. These look fantastic and draw in crowds of picnickers and dog walkers – and insects benefit from a source of pollen and nectar that wouldn’t have otherwise been there. But there’s a problem: annual meadows don’t seem to cater for a wide range of pollinators.

“Annual wildflower meadows can be of value,” says Sam. “But often they’re better for the short-tongued pollinators. By contrast, perennial meadows, which are more typical of the flower-rich grassland that we have lost since the turn of the last century, tend to support a wider range of species – including the rarer, longertongued ones. This is because these

Campaigner: Rob Monk/Friends of the Earth; Crossness: DP Landscapes/Alamy; bee: Phil Savoie/naturepl.com

“VIRTUALLY NO INSECTS WILL GO ANYWHERE NEAR BEDDING PLANTS. YOU MIGHT JUST AS WELL HAVE PLASTIC FLOWERS.”

Spring 2015

Below left: Crossness is a London sewagetreatment site managed for pollinators.

Below: rosebay willowherb, a classic urban ‘weed’, receives a visit from a rare brown-banded carder bee.

“BROWN-BANDED CARDER BEES LOVE WHITE DEAD-NETTLE, BUT THE PLANT IS OFTEN SEEN AS A WEED AND TORN UP.”

Above: dandelions are fantastic for pollinators, so by mowing less often we can boost the value of gardens and parks.

meadows have more plants with long corollas, such as red clover and vetches. So many of our urban wildflower meadows look better than they actually are.”

Another issue is that council staff and gardeners see some valuable plants as just ‘weeds’. “Rarities like the brown-banded carder and shrill carder bees love flowers such as white dead-nettle and black horehound,” says Sam. “Yet these are often regarded as weeds and torn up in favour of ‘prettier’ plants. It’s such a shame.”

She notes that some habitat-creation projects she has worked on have met with hostility from the local community because they’re regarded as unattractive. “It’s a problem that councils face regularly. Most people are positive, but there’s sometimes a very vocal minority that complain about areas looking messy. A lot of our work is educating the public as to why we are doing things.

There’s a lot of PR in habitat creation.”

In Warwick Gardens, Penny Frith attributes the abundance of pollinators she records to the relaxed planting regime, where ‘weeds’ such as yarrow and black horehound are allowed to thrive. “We need to stop overmanaging parks and gardens, stop over-planting, and leave what’s growing to just keep growing,” she explains.

“We need to look at what’s actually there before ripping everything up to plant a wildflower meadow.”

When I talk to Penny in mid-March, she tells me that there’s nothing much in the park except some green alkanet and fat hen. Yet even at this early stage of spring, she has already photographed a variety of pollinators: the hairy-footed flower bee, three species of hoverfly (Eristalis pertinax, Eristalis tenax and Eupeodes luniger), a dung fly and a small tortoiseshell butterfly.

So while urban areas do support pollinators, it’s usually the more abundant species, which don’t need our help.

If we want to help the rarer species – including those that feed on ‘weeds’ – we need to do an awful lot more.

Perhaps if more of us surveyed insects like Penny, then councils would have the incentive they need to protect and improve these habitats.

Getting the public onboard with habitat creation is key.

“People need to be more aware of long-tongued bumblebee species,” says Sam Page. “Gardeners, in particular, should cater for the needs of the specialists as well as the plentiful pollinators. The work we have done with Thames Water has benefited other pollinators as well. Today we see clouds of insects – hoverflies, pollinating beetles and butterflies – all buzzing around the wildflowers, and swallows swooping + GET INVOLVED down to feast on the insects. It’s The Radio 4 series Shared beautiful.”

Planet has discussed urban pollinators: http://bbc.in/1BKn7xK

KATE BRADBURY is a naturalist. Her book The Wildlife Gardener (Kyle Books, £14.99) is available now.

l Learn more about British pollinator conservation at www.buglife.org.uk, www.bumblebeeconservation.org and http://urbanpollinators.blogspot.co.uk l Join the Bees ’n Beans citizen science project: www.ljbees.org.uk

From left: Jack Parks/FLPA; imagebroker/FLPA; Wild Wonders of Europe/NPL; Nick Upton/NPL; Juan Carlos Munoz/Robert Harding; Juan Manuel Borrero/NPL

5 PLANTS TO GROW FOR LONG-TONGUED BUMBLEBEES

1

VIPER’S BUGLOSS

An exotic-looking native that bears tall spikes of blue flowers and repeat-blooms all summer. Plants continue to bloom in drought, producing nectar throughout the day.

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2

RED CLOVER

Produces pollen particularly rich in protein and is valuable for nesting bees, which feed pollen to their larvae. Ideal for lawns – it’s also beneficial to mow less frequently.

3

WHITE DEAD-NETTLE

Nettle-shaped leaves without any stinging hairs, originally native to woodlands and grasslands. This is perfect for a wilder corner of your garden.

4

BLACK HOREHOUND

This is a pinkish wildflower native to roadsides, hedgerows and waste ground.

It has a pungent, rotten smell when its leaves are crushed.

5

BORAGE

With star-shaped, azure flowers, this annual is perfect for borders and dotting around the edges of vegetable beds.

Flowers refill with nectar every two minutes. Easy to grow from seed.

Spring 2015

F SU F REE BS OR P CR U &P IB K ER S*

A NEW SPECIAL EDITION FROM THE MAKERS OF BBC WILDLIFE MAGAZINE

Discover the world’s most exciting mammals in this amazing and colourful special issue. Learn about behaviour, from hunting and raising a family to tool use and communication.

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REVIEWS

O BOOKS O TV & RADIO O DIGITAL O EVENTS O MOVIES Listen out for wrens on 3 May – they are tiny birds with big voices.

THIS

MUST DO MONTH

Q EVENT

CALLING ALL EARLY BIRDS INTERNATIONAL DAWN CHORUS DAY 2015 Sunday 3 May 2015

here are now more opportunities than ever for you to take part in International Dawn Chorus Day (IDCD), the worldwide celebration of the dawn chorus. Established over 30 years ago by the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country, this exciting event now involves participants from over 80 countries.

Joe Peacock has been co-ordinating IDCD for the past three years. “Sharing those very special moments when the natural world is waking up is something everyone should experience,” he says.

This year the BBC Wildlife editorial team plans to rise early and join in the excitement.

We’ll be reporting on the dawn chorus from our gardens or local wildlife patches with cameras and recorders, and we want you to get involved. Why not immerse yourself in the great symphony found on your doorstep and share your experience with us on our forum? Find out more at www.discoverwildlife.com/forum.

Wren: Mark Hamblin; crab: Dan Burton/NPL; orca: Brandon Cole/NPL

T

Jo Price Staff writer l Visit www.idcd.info to find an event near you.

DON’T MISS

Spring 2015

The Advance of the Giant Crabs

Planet Earth Under Threat

The story of Kamchatka crabs introduced into the Barents Sea. http://bbc.in/1Dk2uMG

How global warming is affecting the natural world. http://bbc.in/18htuSP

The Dog and the Whale A day on a motor boat with Tucker the sniffer dog and a team of zoologists in search of orca dung. http://bbc.in/1GoJ9Ld

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Wildcats are very rare in the UK. If you glimpse one it could have domestic ancestry.

OK BO OF THE MONTH

THE GREAT BRITISH HUNT Wildcat: Chris O’Reilly; orange-tip: Richard Revels/Nature Photographers Ltd; Martin Hughes-Games: Jo Avery

A search for the most uncommon and endangered species in the UK.

FEW AND FAR BETWEEN

WILD GARDEN WEEKENDS

THE EDGE OF THE SEA

By Charlie Elder

By Tania Pascoe

By Rachel Carson

Bloomsbury £16.99

Wild Things Publishing £16.99

Unicorn Press £14.99

quest for rare British wildlife risks being selfindulgent and exclusive, but that’s not journalist Charlie Elder’s style. This entertaining and very inclusive guide describes his odyssey in search of rare animals which we are unlikely to see unless we make a special effort. Some of his targets such as the dormouse and the eel are familiar in name at least, but he also makes time for obscurities like the freshwater fish the vendace and the streaked bombardier beetle.

The wildlife enthusiast’s journey takes him far and wide to meet the conservationists who are the key to his success. Most deliver their chosen charges along with fascinating tales of decline and hope. Nevertheless some creatures such as the Scottish wildcat are predictably elusive, and it takes bulldog determination to locate the spiny seahorse in its eelgrass lair.

But this is no mere rarity twitch. Laced with humour, the book celebrates the struggle to save Britain’s most threatened species. Who else would write that the meadowloving corncrake “lives by the sward and dies by the sward”?

A

If, like me, you are a foodie who loves nature, gardens and exploring the wilder corners of Britain, then this book will delight you. Former corporate sustainability consultant Tania Pascoe has arranged the country into bite-sized geographical regions, and she has clearly enjoyed tracking down new and unusual places to visit.

There are suggestions for nature reserves, open gardens and specialist nurseries, as well as characterful cafés, food shops and pubs. There are even recommendations for B&Bs, camp sites and other places to stay – everything you need for a weekend voyage of discovery.

“The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place. All through the long history of Earth it has been an area of unrest where waves have broken heavily against the land, where the tides have pressed forward over the continents, receded, and then returned.” So begins Rachel Carson’s 1955 seashore classic, reissued to move and inspire a new generation of readers. Ocean science has offered up solutions to some of the mysteries of Carson’s day, but her book is still as rewarding for its luminous and evocative writing as when first published, beautifully conveying the wonders of the wild.

Brett Westwood Naturalist and BBC Radio 4 presenter

Chris Baines Conservationist

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Callum Roberts Professor of marine conservation, University of York

Spring 2015

REVIEWS BOOKS MEET THE AUTHOR

Q EXPERT GUIDE ROBERT READ

GET INTO INSECTS OBSERVE SPECIES carefully in terrestrial and freshwater habitats. The first time you watch a dragonfly emerge by the side of a pool on a summer morning is an experience never forgotten.

SET UP LIGHT TRAPS to attract moths, and use pitfall traps to study beetles. Sweepnets swished through grasses can reveal grasshoppers and crickets, and ‘beating’ vegetation over an umbrella could uncover shieldbugs and leafhoppers.

LEARN TO IDENTIFY different insect classes, then pick a group to study in detail that has a manageable number

MARTIN HUGHES�GAMES Martin has narrowly avoided meeting a man-eating tiger and braved a –21°C gale to film migrating geese.

Why should people read your new book?

of species in the UK, such as butterflies or grasshoppers.

TAKE ADVANTAGE of summer to study insects when their activity is at its peak. In April look out for brimstone, peacock, small tortoiseshell and orange-tip (above) butterflies.

O ROBERT READ is the author of A Naturalist’s Guide to Insects of Britain and Northern Europe (John Beaufoy Publishing, £8.99). Visit http://johnbeaufoy.com to find out more.

I wrote diaries during the years I was in the field, and without them I could not have written A Wild Life.

Every chapter gives fresh insights into the biology and behaviour of the animals I encountered, and reveals entertaining anecdotes from my wildlife film-making adventures around the world.

Where was your most challenging film location?

Camping on the Tibetan Plateau at over 5,000m during a gale. It was –21°C while I was waiting to film migrating bar-headed geese as they flew from their summer breeding grounds on high-altitude lakes to their wintering grounds in Nepal.

What was your proudest moment as a film-maker?

BADGER

100 FAMILY ADVENTURES

By Daniel Heath Justice

By Tim, Kerry, Amy and Ella Meek

Reaktion £9.99

Frances Lincoln £14.99

I have read many of the books in Reaktion’s series Animal, and though they are uniformly beautiful the quality of the text does vary. However, Badger is one of the best. Author and academic Daniel Heath Justice is deeply read, yet shares his knowledge with a light touch. The focus of the book is on the way that the image of the badger has been used throughout the world in literature, art and advertising (did you know that its association with the mythic underworld has made the animal a symbol of wisdom?).

But there is also plenty of interesting natural history about different badger species from Africa, Asia and North America.

If you find yourself relentlessly uttering “Too much screen time!”, “Enough!” and “You need some fresh air!”, this effort from the adventurous Meek family might be of assistance, offering 100 ways to persuade even the most committed Skylanders fan that there are other things to do on a Saturday. Ideas range from the somewhat ambitious (make your own raft; go skiing) to the brilliantly simple (leave the lights off for 24 hours; clean up a park) by way of imaginative (sleep on a mountain; descend a hill in the dark). It should get your kids at least thinking about turning off their device of choice and doing something less boring instead.

Hugh Warwick Ecologist and writer

Sarah McPherson Section editor

Spring 2015

Getting a presenter to jump out of a hot-air balloon and freefall while being chased by a peregrine falcon to test how fast the raptor could actually stoop. It turned out to be over 254kph.

What is your most exciting wildlife encounter to date?

Nuna Bhale was a known man-eating tiger in Nepal.

We were wading through a river when the forest guards whispered, “Around the corner is Nuna Bhale’s favourite resting place.”

Suddenly the full, terrifying

impact of what could happen hit me like a punch in the stomach. But before I could suggest retreating we were around the corner – and there was no sign of the tiger.

How does filming wildlife in the UK compare with filming exotic animals abroad?

It’s all about story for me – whether it’s a Bengal tiger or a tiger beetle in your back garden, the challenge is the same. Filming a kingfisher nest for BBC Two’s Springwatch gave us the most memorable footage I have ever seen – more

THE FULL IMPACT OF WHAT COULD HAPPEN HIT ME LIKE A PUNCH IN THE STOMACH”

`

astonishing, I would argue, than seeing a lion bring down yet another wildebeest.

How has wildlife film-making changed over 30 years?

The change from film to tape opened up dramatic possibilities for me as a film-maker. I remember shooting komodo dragons using a video camera for the first time. We could capture behaviour that would have been impossible with film.

O A WILD LIFE is Springwatch co-presenter Martin’s memoir of his travels around the world filming wildlife (Little Brown, £18.99). Head to www.littlebrown.co.uk for more information.

BBC Wildlife

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V T O CH ICE

PREDATORY PERFECTION They come in every size and shape, and hunt in every sea. Meet the world’s greatest ocean predator.

SHARK Three episodes, due to air in May – check RT for details

orty years ago a certain Steven Spielberg film premiered across America. It was to be one of the most momentous films of our time, not just for its massive and unprecedented box-office success, but for the shockwave of terror it sent through a generation of beachgoers.

For anyone still suffering the Jaws effect, this series aims to change attitudes by ‘rebranding’ the shark. “These are not bloodthirsty killing machines, but sophisticated, social and vulnerable creatures,” says series producer Steve Greenwood.

“We want to convey what incredible predators they are.”

However, it’s not just predatory prowess that makes sharks special. They are phenomenally diverse, as revealed in the first episode. They exhibit fascinating breeding behaviour (and can clean their teeth), as explored in episode two. And they are killed in their millions by the commercial fishing industry each TOP FACT year, as reported in episode three. Shark science and conservation are in a race Q One of the world’s smallest against time (you can find out more sharks – the about this subject on p20). velvet belly To say that Shark reveals these animals lanternshark – can fit in the as never before may sound clichéd, but this palm of your is fresh and exciting stuff, with a sciencehand… and glows fiction quality that will keep you hooked. in the dark.

F

Sarah McPherson Section editor

Great white shark: Morné Hardenberg/Atlantic Edge Films/BBC; polar bears: Thorsten Milse/NDR Naturfilm; Nigel with leatherback turtle: Paul Cater Deaton; polecat: Edwin Giesbers

Q TV NEW SERIES

SETTING SAIL FOR WILDLIFE

Nigel meets a female leatherback turtle.

OF THE MONTH

`a

NIGEL MARVEN’S CRUISE SHIP ADVENTURES From Wednesday 6 May, 8pm This new six-part series for Watch sees likeable adventurer and wildlife presenter Nigel Marven looking at wildlife from a new travel perspective – the cruise ship, revealing that there is more to be had from a voyage on a luxury liner than themed dinners and questionable evening entertainment. In part one, Nigel explores the natural-history hotspots of the Caribbean, his six brief ports-of-call still allowing for a swim with a sperm whale off Dominica; a meeting with an egg-laying leatherback turtle on the sandy shore of Saint Croix; a close sighting of the endemic, jet-black Guadeloupe woodpecker; a dive with the colourful and diverse reef species off Saint Barts; and an encounter with rare Anegada rock iguanas on Necker, the island resort owned

by Richard Branson. Elsewhere in the series,

RADIO QUOTE

Nigel island-hops around Scandinavia, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, Antarctica and the Central American coast, introducing both crew and fellow passengers to natural history along the way. If you can cope with the oneliners that litter the narration, there are plenty of wildlife encounters here, and Nigel’s enthusiasm is as infectious as ever.

I HAVE THIS NOTION THAT WHAT I’M HEARING IS EXACTLY WHAT MONKS DID 1,000 YEARS AGO. Chris Watson, sound recordist

The Cliff, Episode 2 www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/nathistory

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Spring 2015

REVIEWS BROADCAST A mother polar bear suckles her cubs.

Q TV FIRST LOOK

GROWING UP WILD A portrait of three bear species finding their feet in the big, wide and very dangerous world.

A great white shark, here off the tiny pacific island of Guadeloupe.

Q RADIO FROM THE ARCHIVE

REVISITING THE CLASSICS THE LIVING WORLD Sunday 19 April, 26 April and 3 May

The Living World strand, a series of intimate encounters with British wildlife, has been a much-loved part of the BBC Radio 4 network since the 1960s. This month the series airs four classic episodes from the archives, reversioned and brought up to date with an additional foreword and epilogue from BBC TV presenter and BBC Wildlife contributor Chris Packham. Three to tune into, all fronted by Lionel Kellaway, include Skinner’s Farm (1995), where conservation measures have allowed little owls and butterflies to thrive; Polecats (1997), which follows a mission to track down this elusive little mammal; and Swifts (2000), which involves an ascent of the tower of Oxford’s Natural History Museum for a close encounter with these superPolecats are slowly spreading speedy ‘devil birds’. across the UK.

Spring 2015

BEARHOOD Thursday 23 April, 8pm

hree very different landscapes; three different species of bear, newly independent and making their own way in the world thanks to the lessons learned from their mothers. Almost all female bears produce twins or triplets every three years, retaining a strong bond with their offspring for their first years of life.

This new film for Nat Geo Wild follows the close mother–cub relationship in the sloth, brown and polar bears, revealing how the youngsters navigate the murky and dangerous world of independence.

For a young brown bear, survival is hard – 40 per cent of juveniles don’t make it past their first year, with solitary males posing the biggest threat.

Climbing is a key skill to

T

master from a young age, as is communication by chomping, scent-marking and body language. If a female can survive to her third year, she’ll be ready to start a family of her own.

Young polar bears face equally tough times, particularly in summer when the sea-ice disappears and prey is thin on the ground – nearly half will perish in the first 12 months. Having relied on their mother’s milk for two years, finding food in the lean season requires great resourcefulness (raiding picnic boxes) and luck (a beached whale).

Finally, there’s the cavedwelling sloth bears of India, who must learn to curb their curiosity lest they fall prey to predatory leopards, and remain vigilant for rogue males.

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REVIEWS EVENTS NATURE RESERVE SPOTLIGHT

ATTENBOROUGH NATURE RESERVE WHERE? Attenborough, Nottinghamshire, NG9 6DY RESERVE MANAGER Graham Bowden

WHY YOU SHOULD VISIT

WHAT YOU CAN SEE From mid-April sand martins will be arriving back at the reserve from their overwintering grounds in sub-Saharan Africa. Watch these birds closely from a hide as they feed over Coneries Pond and

TOP WILDLIFE SPOT In spring and summer the dense grassland adjacent to the River Trent path provides some of the best opportunities to see 9 of the 10 breeding warblers at the reserve.

JOIN ITS EVENT Our Big50 Bioblitz takes place on Friday 19 and Saturday 20 June 2015. Help us record as many species as we can in 24 hours.

An artificial nest bank at the reserve provides nesting opportunities for up to 150 sand martins each summer.

HOW TO VOLUNTEER Opportunities are available. Get in touch via the website: www. attenboroughnaturecentre.co.uk

SPRING WILDLIFE EVENTS X

1-31

May

THE GREAT BRITISH BEE COUNT This national survey aims to provide vital information on bee populations in the UK. You’re encouraged to record any bees you see, and upload your information and any photos you take via the free Great British Bee Count app or the website below. www.greatbritishbeecount.co.uk

C

Bee: Amelia Collins/Friends of the Earth; Kongouro artwork: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London; heron: Steve Knell/RSPB; puffins: Greg Macvean

Until

31May

Until

T

27June X

T EVHEONICE

VISIT A HERONRY

STRANGE CREATURES

On spring weekends RSPB experts are on hand at heronry watchpoints at Regent’s and Battersea Parks, London; Verulamium Park, St Albans; Queen’s Park, Heywood, Manchester; and Hartsholme Country Park, Lincoln. http://bit.ly/1BxkgIc

Explore the art of unknown animals in this free exhibition at the Grant Museum of Zoology, University College London. Discover how imagery has been used to introduce newly discovered ‘alien’ species to the public, such as the ‘Kongouro’ (left). www.ucl.ac.uk/museums

15-25 May X

PUFFIN FEST 2015 Celebrate a much-loved seabird at the Scottish Seabird Centre, North Berwick, this spring. Enjoy 10 days of family-friendly activities, including puffin-spotting cruises, a quiz trail, guided walks and a puffin-themed art exhibition. http://seabird.org

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SPEAKERS’ CORNER ALICE ADAMS WHAT Walter Rothschild: the Man, the Museum and the Menagerie WHEN 7pm on 21 April WHERE NHM at Tring

The Natural History Museum at Tring was built in 1889 to house the incredible zoological collections of the famous naturalist Walter Rothschild.

“Discover how and why one of Tring’s best-known characters created a legacy that is a great asset to international scientific research today,” says Alice Adams, the museum’s interpretation and learning manager. Her informative talk will discuss the legacy of the museum’s founder and clear up a few mysteries, including which non-native species introductions in the area Walter is really responsible for. Tickets cost £4.50 and advanced booking is required – visit http://nhm.ac.uk/ tring/ for details.

Don’t miss the redeveloped Walter Rothschild gallery at NHM Tring, which is due to open in April.

Spring 2015

Sand martins: John Smith; Alice Adams: Gwen Wilkie

Managed by the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, Attenborough Nature Reserve is well known for its birds. In the summer many species migrate here to breed, including warblers and a large colony of common terns.

return to their nests, which are just metres away from you.

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COMPETITIONS

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Win a prize with our brain-teaser.

BBC WILDLIFE ADVISORY PANEL SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH BBC natural-history presenter

PROF CHRIS BAINES Conservationist and gardener

Compiled by RICHARD SMYTH

DR JON BRIDLE Biologist, University of Bristol

JOHN A BURTON CEO, World Land Trust

MARK CARWARDINE Zoologist, writer and photographer

DR PETER EVANS Scientific director, Sea Watch Foundation

DR PHIL GATES Botanist, University of Durham

DR JANE GOODALL Primatologist

STEVE GREENWOOD Series producer, BBC Natural History Unit

MIKE GUNTON Producer, BBC Natural History Unit

Answers in our June issue

MARTIN HARPER Director of conservation, RSPB

PROF STEPHEN HARRIS Zoologist, University of Bristol

DR PETER HAYWARD

MARCH ANSWERS Across: 8 Rook, 9 Acorn, 10 Eyas, 11 Copper, 12 Richmond, 13 Sphagnum, 15 Nettle, 17 Jackass, 19 Gadwall, 22 Flower, 24 Hawfinch, 26 Colorado, 28 Peewit, 30 Meal, 31 Smelt, 32 Leek Down: 1 Dodo, 2 Skipjack, 3 Warren, 4 Gourami, 5 Anaconda, 6 Hermit, 7 Dawn, 14 Pearl, 16 Lilac, 18 Sargasso, 20 Whitefly, 21 Whooper, 23 Woolly, 25 Wapiti, 27 Owen, 29 Ibex

Honorary research fellow, University of Swansea

TREVOR JAMES Chairman, British Naturalists’ Association

RICHARD A JONES Entomologist

TONY JUNIPER Environmental campaigner

SIMON KING Wildlife presenter and film-maker

DR ANDREW KITCHENER Principal curator of vertebrates, National Museums Scotland

TOM LANGTON Herpetologist

RICHARD MABEY

Naturalist and author

MARCH PRIZE WINNER: Ruth Okey Warwick

ACROSS 7 Small, tree-dwelling, exceptionally vocal African primate with large eyes, also known as a galago (8) 9 Insects at an intermediate stage of development, such as caterpillars (6) 10 Tiny, biting, two-winged insect that resembles a mosquito (4) 11 Elongated fish of the order Atheriniformes with a silver line along its body (10) 12 Tall tree-like grass; the staple food of the giant panda (6) 14 New World songbird that builds a dome-shaped nest from mud (8) 15 Small back-yard bird that visits the UK to breed and is known for its beautiful song (6, 7) 17 Arboreal, brightly coloured amphibian; usually tiny (4, 4) 19 The ___ locust of Africa and Asia can fly long distances in huge swarms (6)

21 A creature with a backbone, such as a mammal, reptile or bird (10) 22 The fleshy red protuberance on the head of a bird, such as grouse (4) 23 The ___ crayfish is an invasive species that lives in the streams and rivers of the UK (6) 24 The ___ puffball is a large, round fungus with a tough, hide-like skin (8) DOWN 1 The ___fowl is a noisy African bird of the family Numididae (6) 2 Thrush-like songbird that in the UK may be stone___ or whin___ (4) 3 Aromatic flowering herb also known as southernwood and maid’s ruin (4, 4) 4 The woolly coat of a sheep (6) 5 Finches that specialise in feeding on the seeds of pine cones (10) 6 This name is given to some fartravelling butterflies, Bematistes

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Spring 2015

Director, Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, University of Oxford

PROF ROBBIE McDONALD

aganice for example (8)

Chair in natural environment, Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter

8 Lively, colourful, insect-eating bird

STEPHEN MILLS

that winters in African grasslands (6, 7) 13 The goliath ___-___ spider is a huge, predatory arachnid that lives in the rainforests of South America (4-6)

Naturalist and conservationist

DR PAT MORRIS Mammalogist

DOUGLAS PALMER Palaeontologist and science writer

VASSILI PAPASTAVROU

15 Evergreen shrub of the coffee family

Whale biologist, International Fund for Animal Welfare

with pale, strongly scented flowers (8)

BRUCE PEARSON

16 North American coniferous tree

ROBIN PRYTHERCH

with rufous-coloured bark (3, 5) 18 River of north-west England; its estuary attracts thousands of wintering waterbirds (6) 20 Marine fish noted for its habit of attaching itself to larger creatures, such as sharks, to feed on the host’s external parasites (6) 22 Species of salmon with small black spots, also named the silver salmon (4)

WIN A WEATHER STATION HOW TO ENTER This competition is only open to residents of the UK (including the Channel Islands). Post entries to BBC Wildlife Magazine, Spring 2015 Crossword, PO Box 501, Leicester, LE94 0AA or email the answers to spring2015@wildlifecomps.co.uk by 5pm on 1 May 2015. Entrants must supply name, address and telephone number. The winner will be the first correct entry drawn at random after the closing time. The name of the winner will appear in the June 2015 issue. By entering participants agree to be bound by the general competition terms and conditions shown on this page.

PROF DAVID MACDONALD

Keep track of the local weather using this Oregon Scientific wireless weather station, worth £59.99.

You can also monitor the elements using your smartphone via Bluetooth up to a range of 30m (see the website for requirements).

O Visit http://store.oregon scientific.com/uk/

Wildlife artist Ornithologist

IAN REDMOND Chief consultant, UNEP/UNESCO Great Apes Survival Project

TIM SCOONES Executive producer, Springwatch, BBC Natural History Unit

SOPHIE STAFFORD Editorial consultant

VALMIK THAPAR Conservationist General competition terms and conditions 1. The BBC Code of Conduct for competitions can be found at www.bbc. co.uk/competitioncode and all BBC-branded magazines comply with the Code. 2. Competitions are open to all residents of the UK, including the Channel Islands, aged 18 years or older, except employees or contractors of Immediate Media and anyone connected with the promotion or their direct family members. 3. By entering a competition, the participants agree: to be bound by these terms and conditions; that their surname and county of residence may be released if they win a prize; and that should they win the competition, their name and likeness may be used for pre-arranged promotional purposes. 4. Entrants should follow the instructions for each competition carefully in order to enter. Entries received after the specified closing date and time will not be considered, and cannot be returned. 5. Entrants must supply their full name, postal address and landline telephone number. We will use entrants’ personal details in accordance with the Immediate Media Privacy Policy at www. immediate.co.uk/privacy-policy. 6. Only one entry will be permitted per person, regardless of method of entry. Bulk entries made by third parties will not be permitted. 7. The winning entrant will be the first correct entry drawn at random after the closing time, or, in creative competitions, the one that in the judges’ opinion is the best. 8. There is no cash alternative and prizes will not be transferable. Prizes must be taken as stated and cannot be deferred. We reserve the right to substitute the prize with one of the same or greater value. 9. Our decision as to the winner is final and no correspondence relating to a competition will be entered into.

The name and county of residence of the winner(s) will be available (by sending an SAE to BBC Wildlife Magazine, Immediate Media, 2nd Floor, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN) within three months of the closing date of the promotion. 10. The winner(s) will be notified by telephone or email within 10 days of the close of the promotion. 11. We reserve the right to amend these terms and conditions or to cancel, alter or amend a competition at any stage if deemed necessary in our opinion, or if circumstances arise outside our control. 12. If we cannot reach you, or if we have not received a response within two working days of the initial date of contact, we may re-offer the prize to a runner-up or in one of our future competitions. The prize will only be reassigned three times before it is given to charity. 13. We exclude liability to the full extent permitted by law for any loss, damage or injury occurring to the participant arising from his or her entry into a competition or occurring to the winner(s) arising from his or her acceptance of a prize. 14. The competitions are subject to the laws of England. 15. Promoter: Immediate Media Co Bristol Ltd.

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YOUR PHOTOS www.discoverwildlife.com is the place to see and share wildlife photos.

TO PHOIC E CHO

1 REDBREAST RAGE

2 SAFARI SELFIE

When this robin became distracted, a blue tit arrived and started feeding on a small stash of food it was guarding.

The redbreast took offence and launched itself at the blue tit, chased it off and took a mouthful of feathers. The smaller bird fled, suitably chastised but hopefully none the worse for its experience.

Ray Brown, Huddersfield

I took this photo in the Maasai Mara, Kenya, when a cheetah jumped onto a 4WD full of tourists – I have read that big cats are known to use vehicles to gain a higher vantage point. One of the tourists took a ‘selfie’ with the animal and I quickly grabbed my camera to capture the moment.

Yanai Bonneh, Ein HaBesor, Israel

ONLINE CONTEST SIGNS OF SPRING

3 PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF I took this photo of a ‘crestie’ in a Caledonian forest in the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland. I had been desperate to get a shot of a crested tit on the branch of a Scots pine. The image I had in mind took me a good few days to achieve and several failed attempts, but I’m pleased with the end result.

Lyle McCalmont, Redcar

SMALL TORTOISESHELL by Julia Hipkiss

4 FLORIDA FISHER I took this photo in Tarpon Bay, Sanibel Island, USA, while canoeing with my husband. There were several ospreys circling in the air on the lookout for fish.

A few birds of prey in the distance had successfully caught mullet, but this individual had a failed fishing attempt right in front of our canoe. This gave me the chance to take this shot of a magnificent bird and its amazing wingspan.

Cilla Watson, Milford Haven

BROWN RAT by Carole Ratcliffe

FROGS by Chloe Enter our monthly online photographic contest at www.discoverwildlife.com/ your-photos/photo-contest

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YOUR PHOTOS

ENTER TO WIN A DIDRIKSONS JACKET Don’t let grey skies, wind, rain or snow stop you from getting outside. Enter our competition for a chance to win a women’s Tuva jacket (right), worth £160, or a men’s Hjalmar jacket, worth £160. The jackets will keep you warm, dry and comfortable. www.didriksons.com SUBMIT YOUR PHOTOS O For a chance to see your image in an issue of BBC Wildlife, please enter our Your Photos competition at www.discoverwildlife.com/ submit-your-photos

6 POLLEN POWER 5BLACK BEAUTY

I took a trip to Tal Chhapar Sanctuary, Rajasthan, India, for five days over New Year – the area is noted for its blackbucks.

You cannot approach this handsome Indian gazelle without startling it, but fortunately the species is easy to photograph from a distance. The blackbuck is decreasing in India due to loss of habitat, so I wanted to take this picture to showcase the mammal to a wider audience.

Amit Kumar Ghosh, Calcutta, India

Spring 2015

I saw plenty of grey squirrels while exploring Brandon Hill park, Bristol, at the beginning of March, but this buff-tailed bumblebee caught my eye. It was foraging pollen from a patch of crocuses.

When it departed one particular spring flower, it left behind a trail of pollen in the air!

Charles Kinsey, Bristol

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Tales from the

bush A WILD WORLD OF RIPPING YARNS WHO? BILL MARKHAM is a producer with the BBC’s Natural History Unit who works on Springwatch and Winterwatch. Follow him on Twitter: @billmarkham99.

WHAT?

A snake alive, thanks to Anna and Bill.

HORSESHOE WHIP SNAKE

WHERE? ANDALUCÍA, SPAIN

Bill saw many bird species on his ‘babymoon’ in Andalucía, including white storks and egrets.

A TRIP TO SUNNY SPAIN GAVE FATHER� TO�BE BILL A SURPRISING, AND SCALY, CHANCE TO PRACTISE BEING A PARENT.

Bill Markham

‘B

abymoon.’ It’s a horrible word, but a week of sun, sea and conversation in Andalucía in August couldn’t be all bad, especially if I managed to squeeze in some wildlife watching before our child was born. I knew birding wouldn’t top my girlfriend Anna’s agenda, but she allowed me a couple of days at a great reserve before the ritual relaxation began. I hoped to show her some amazing sightings by way of thanks.

Doñana National Park is Spain’s premier wildlife hotspot, a key stop-off for migrating birds – except in August, when it’s so hot and dry that most of them have migrated away. However, it’s also home to a good number of Iberian lynx, and the opportunity to see one of the planet’s rarest cats meant even a heavily pregnant partner could be persuaded into a pre-dawn start.

Our chances of success were still slim, but on a monochrome morning we clocked a booted eagle, a flotilla of flamingos, and enough hoopoes to provoke curiosity about the collective noun (a ‘woohoo’ of hoopoes?).

Anna was surprisingly animated, ticking off 39 species on our guide’s list, and pencilling in one – the melodious warbler – that wasn’t even on it. No lynx, though.

Sooner than I’d have liked we were heading south for the Costa de la Luz. Apart from the chameleon pictured in the blurb for our accommodation, I doubted there’d be much wildlife. But, perusing the August 2014 issue of BBC Wildlife while on the loo, I discovered that the rare northern bald ibis had a small breeding colony in Vejer… barely 5km away.

The species might not be as glamorous as the lynx, but it was charismatic, Critically Endangered and apparently nesting on cliffs right by the road. I couldn’t resist it: “A spot of birding before dinner, darling?”

The cliffs were covered in birds – pigeons.

A waiter in the nearby taverna confirmed we

were in the right spot, but the ibis had left for Morocco a few weeks earlier. Strike two!

On our drive home after dinner I resigned myself to there being no big wildlife sighting during the trip. Then Anna cried “Snake!” and slammed on the brakes. Though herpetophobic, she sounded almost excited. I jumped out of the car into the busy road to take a look.

The snake was big, black-and-yellow and stationary. By the light of my phone the animal appeared dead, but when I gently poked it with my flip-flop it hissed heavily – alive, confused and angry. Dinnertime drinks meant my handling skills weren’t what they should have been, but I used my flimsy footwear to usher the grumpy lump away from traffic to safety. Twitter later informed me that it was a horseshoe whip snake – feisty, apparently, but not venomous.

Still, even Anna was chuffed at our rescue effort – and I hoped that it would prove a good omen for our parenting skills.

“THE SNAKE APPEARED DEAD, BUT WHEN I GENTLY POKED IT WITH MY FLIP�FLOP IT HISSED HEAVILY � ALIVE, CONFUSED AND ANGRY.”

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O Do you have a tale that you would like to share? If so, please email a synopsis of your idea to james.fair@immediate.co.uk

Spring 2015