Wildlife April 2011

[alpinelover]

No elk here in my garden, but the green frog is an occupant in my pond. This week, they laid their eggs.

Beautiful frogs. Are they ridibunda or lessonae?

These are lessonae, Anthony.

[Lesley Cox]

Thank you Tom, for the notes about the divers. I must read 'Great Northern' again.

And thanks for the links Mark, Wonderful pictures there. The red throated divers have lovely colouring, that rusty red and a soft grey combo. All of them, such beautiful birds.

[TC]

It's years since I read that book - probably 50!!  It was prophetic as the breeding of a Great Northern Diver possibly took place on Loch Maree, Wester Ross, in 1970.  A pair of Divers were seen in April and then with two young, in the middle of Summer.  However, one of the birds may have been a hybrid Great Northern X Black Throat and was not accepted by the records committee.  In view of global warming it is unlikely that they will ever breed in Scotland now.
As a group of birds, Divers are among my favourites.  You have to admire birds as tough as these. Every time we go out bird watching in Winter, we always see them - regardless of weather.  It can be infuriating watching them.  When they dive, they go down like a submarine with no initial jump and virtually no splash.  When they surface, it can be over a hundred yards away

[Stephenb]

You shouldn't feel too sorry for them, Tom! After all, your birds have almost tropical conditions compared to those that regularly overwinter in the far north of Norway - not even daylight up there!

[David Nicholson]

A couple of weeks ago whilst I was in Stella Tracey's garden I saw quite a few Orange Tip butterflies, I'd never seen one before. Today I had two in my garden. Are they a familiar species or maybe new to this part of the world?

[Hoy]

A couple of weeks ago whilst I was in Stella Tracey's garden I saw quite a few Orange Tip butterflies, I'd never seen one before. Today I had two in my garden. Are they a familiar species or maybe new to this part of the world?

They're not uncommon here in Norway but I think they have increased the range the last years.

[Anthony Darby]

David, orange tips have been spreading since the late 1970s. As recently as 1979 I would have had to drive to Kingussie, not far off 100 miles, to see them in the bog surrounding Ruthven Barracks. By the mid 80s they were breeding in Dunblane! I wouldn't surprise me to see them continue to spread. Their larvae feed on Cardamines pratensis but Jack-by-the-hedge (Alliaria petiolata) is the usual food plant in England.

[mark smyth]

They have been here all my life. This has been a brilliant year for them

[johnw]

A couple of weeks ago whilst I was in Stella Tracey's garden

Lucky you, David! It's the garden I dream about, such a marvellous design. Will never forget that 4ft long trough smothered in the flowers of Gentiana verna, that pitch black Hellebore, those rhodos and......

johnw

[Anthony Darby]

Such dreams you have John.

Here is a spider, on a shrub (Duranta erecta 'Geisha Girl') in my garden, that has had me stumped until my new spider book arrived today ("Spiders of New Zealand and their Worldwide Kin" by Ray and Lyn Forster. A superb book and well worth the price. I showed it to Art Polkanoz of the NZ DOC and he was well impressed, so much so he noted it down and said he would buy one for the office). The spider is known as a bird-dropping spider (Celaenia sp.). It is an orb weaver, but in the weeks I've been watching it it has never spun an orb web. I now know why. At night it hangs from a single thread and releases pheromones from pores in the front legs that attract male tortrix moths which are then caught on the wing. The young hatch from the egg batches seen in the pics and do likewise but catch moth flies (Psychodidae).

[David Nicholson]

A couple of weeks ago whilst I was in Stella Tracey's garden

Lucky you, David! It's the garden I dream about, such a marvellous design. Will never forget that 4ft long trough smothered in the flowers of Gentiana verna, that pitch black Hellebore, those rhodos and......

johnw

John, Stella had a lot of building work done on her house in the last 18 months which disturbed her garden a lot. She is now in the process of re-structuring it but it's still a lovely garden.

[Stephenb]

People returning from Easter in the mountains are full of stories about the enormous numbers of Lemmings (Lemmus lemmus) at the moment. In some areas roads have become slippery because of the large numbers of dead lemming corpses and people report running over lemmings every 50m or so.... The local paper's web site has a number of videos of both aggressive and docile lemmings (see below). Under good conditions, lemmings continue to breed regularly all winter under the snow feeding on mosses leading to the present huge numbers. It's many years since this last happened to this extent.

Google Translate is usually quite good on Norwegian.

Lemming attacking skiers and ending up stuck under a ski (Klister wax)...
http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/trondheim/article1622192.ece

Agressive lemming:
http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/kuriosa/article1622850.ece

Could you scratch me behind the ear?
http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/kuriosa/article1623263.ece

Story about mass lemming deaths on the roads in the mountains
http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/kuriosa/article1623331.ece

[arisaema]

I actually saw one down here in February, probably felt right at home in all the snow.

[scatigaz]

Seen my first Swift today.

[mark smyth]

A few swifts now starting to appear but the east winds will keep them in Europe or Africa