Wildlife summer 2012

[mark smyth]

Maybe its too early for summer?

30 swifts have been seen over Chew Valley lake which is located south of Bristol. Maybe they sre here also.


Edit by maggi : just a bit premature... edited thread title to 2012!

[ronm]

A tad early for 2013 also Mark?





 Edit by maggi : just a bit premature... edited thread title to 2012!

[bulborum]

Mark is the fastest man from the forum
always a year in front 

R

[mark smyth]

LOL I didnt realise.

A cuckoo was calling today in Ireland

[mark smyth]

Not wildlife but astronomy

Has everyone in the northern hemisphere seen Mars, obviously red, to the east, and Jupiter and Venus to the west?

[ronm]

At last some good news for UK Lepidoptera, 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17769868

[Anthony Darby]

Excellent news. At least these surveys are more reliable than the "Big Butterfly Count", which throws up ludicrous sightings, like purple emperors and white admirals in a housing estate in north east England.

[Anthony Darby]

I am really excited today, as I saw my first New Zealand red admiral (Bassaris gonerilla) in the garden, feeding on the banana in my fly trap. Imagine my delight when I checked the undersides of my Urtica ferox leaves to find a wee egg, which was hatching. Disappointment when I checked the pics to find out it is a looper caterpillar (less than 1 millimetre long) and will eventually turn into a geometrid moth.

[ronm]

Wonderful Anthony   . Is the B. gonerilla a rare species?

[Anthony Darby]

It's rare in Auckland as its food plant (Urtica ferox) is considered a weed and destroyed. It is quite nasty, and people and dogs have died if they land in the centre of a bush. The butterfly is becoming scarcer over much of New Zealand because some prat introduced parasitic wasps to deal with the small whites introduced many years ago and the wasps took a fancy to the native butterflies instead! A case of not doing their homework properly.

[ronm]

An all too familiar tale, I'm afraid. 
How are the Monarchs doing?

[Anthony Darby]

Really well, now that the polistes wasps have lost interest as they have no brood to feed and the springbok mantids have not found the caterpillars on my plant, yet. There are five chrysalids in various places near the food plants, which means I have to get some more tags, as I have only four left. Crumbs, I must have tagged 21 butterflies - mostly passing through the garden? I have some pots of various Asclepias spp. seedlings, hopefully for next season. I did some guerilla gardening, planting some seedlings on waste ground nearby. Today I saw that the council had dumped several hundred tons of road-planed tarmac in piles on the place. Heigh ho!

[ronm]

Thats excellent news on the Monarchs Anthony. The chrysalids are one of my favourites.
Not so good news on the  Asclepias  . I used to use A.curassavica in Taiwan and found its fluffy seeds spread around very nicely.  

[Anthony Darby]

A. curassavica is one of the pots of seedlings. I also have A. syriaca which is a large leaved herbaceous perennial, so should be a more substantial proposition? 

[Peter Maguire]

I had to travel over the Pennines late yesterday to speak to the North Cumbria group and had some wonderful views of a Short-eared Owl flying alongside the car for over 400 metres. Even better was the fact that after I stopped the car and retrieved the camera from the boot, I manged to get a couple of (only slightly) shaky pictures of it after landing.