Charnwood Forest butterflies

October 18, 2012 by Michael

The English summer never really happened this year and I was reminded of this on a wildlife walk this week through the lovely Leicestershire countryside. Autumn is my favourite season, the crispness of the air, yellows and golds of leaves, blackberries in the hedgerow, but little compares to the beauty of our autumn butterflies the Comma and Red Admiral.

Look on the underwing, bottom left for the little white comma , which gives this butterfly its name.

Red Admiral butterfly

I am very fortunate to live in the Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, Charnwood Forest is itself part of the National Forest. In the National Forest there are countless nature reserves and areas accessible for people to walk. In May of this year I was near the centre of the National Forest at Moira. I was photographing a female Orange Tip butterfly, the split second I took the photograph a male flew into shot – how lucky can you get !

A male Orange Tip butterfly flies in to an awaiting female.

With such a great start to the butterfly year I was expectant for more. Not so, the weather has been awful. Butterflies need sunshine and warmth, this is the ‘elixir of life’ for butterflies, only this enables them to fly and fly they must, to find a mate. The only butterfly that has done well this year to my knowledge is the Meadow Brown and on a local nature reserve, the Lea Meadows in Ulverscroft valley, Meadow Browns have been abundent.

Meadow Brown butterfly

The Lea Meadows nature Reserve, owned by the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust http://www.lrwt.org.uk/ is a meadowland site. But its special in that it has not been ploughed since medieval times and neither have any agrochemicals been applied. In consequence the 30 acres of meadows are full of wild plants, many species of which used to be common but are not these days. The conservation of such sites are vital to butterfly populations.

Lea Meadows nature reserve, Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire

During the year I lecture and talk to many groups and societies and without exception people love to hear about butterflies. Seeing a butterfly can have the same effect on people as hearing a bird sing. It can remind us that the simply things in life are often the best.

Autumn migration

September 25, 2012 by Michael

September has seen the first huge influx of migrating birds into the UK. Last weekend we were down on the east coast of Norfolk and witnessed the spectacle of waders on their high tide roosting grounds.These birds will have travelled from Arctic Canada across Greenland and down into the North Sea. It is here they will find sufficient food to survive the winter.

Mostly Oystercatchers being forced by the incoming tide off their feeding grounds.

Tens of thousands of waders were present and many people had come to witness this great wildlife spectacle.

And this is what these birds

Cork Oak forests – a unique environment.

June 7, 2012 by Michael

Cork Oak Forest from Paula Webster on Vimeo.

Cork forest landscape

The regions of Southern Spain and Portugal where Cork Oak forests dominate the landscape are rich in both culture and wildlife and the Websters Wildshots team of are making a film about it.

Growing and harvesting cork is an ancient agricultural system and the surviving forest habitat contains an unsurpassed wildlife, much of which has since disappeared . Recent decades have seen world prices for cork plummet as plastics and metal screw tops are now the material of choice for many brands of wine. Not that they are better materials, a quality cork stopper reigns supreme for the task of stopping bottles and is still used exclusively by French champagne producers.

The art and craft of making corks

In order to combat this demise the regional government has established a cork research centre, called a subberoteca, whose aim is to help and advise the cork growers as to the best way to manage their cork forests and when is the optimum time to harvest their cork.

This image shows cork samples hanging up. Each line of samples represents the reference collection of one grower and is used to determine the quality of their crop.

Subberoteca

A National Park has been established to conserve the fragile cork forest ecosystem as well as the cultural traditions which underpin area. The national park is called the Alcornocales, the Spanish name for the Cork Oak.

Alcornocarles National parkThe Websters Wildshots expedition vehicle was able to penetrate some of the vast Cork Oak forests. The national park is a great step forward towards the conservation of the habitat Overlooking the Alcornocarles National park, southern Spain

The Alcornocales has many rare breeding birds such as the Bee Eater

European Bee Eater

and insects such as this amazing Rhinocerous beetle.

The Rhinocerous Beetle is a rare insect and only found in Europes ancient forests.

Cork Oaks are managed organically, the rural communities which depend upon the continual use of corks, especially for bottling are rich in tradition and culture. The wildlife that depends upon Cork Oak forests is among the finest anywhere in Europe.

In a Spanish restaurant expect the best wines to come from bottles that have corks.

we can all help by only buying wine that is stopped with a real cork. This campaign has had a recent boost by an article in the Daily Mail.

Brilliant UK wildlife: 1

June 3, 2012 by Michael

The UK is brilliant for wildlife and being an island in the middle of an ocean is only one good reason.

London is as far north as Newfoundland, and they have icebergs floating by most of the year ! So forget the rainy days, the UK has mild weather and this is as great for the wildlife as it is for those of us who live here.

Waves roll in from the atlantic to the West Wales coastline.

The reason for this beautifully mild climate is the Gulf Stream, this carries warm water from the Caribbean northwards to the coasts of the UK. The Gulf Stream originates from the warm surface waters of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico; and the North Atlantic Drift propels it northwards towards Greenland and then southwards where it nurtures the coasts of Norway and the entire western coasts of Britain and Ireland. This ‘marine motorway’ has many benefits, it brings unusual species from southern waters northwards as well as enabling nutrient rich waters from the Arctic to flow southwards.

One of these species is a very special bird. Its difficult to imagine half a million birds, but that is the number of Manx Shearwaters that follow the ocean currents from Brazil to the UK every summer to breed. These ‘oceanic swifts’ follow the gulf stream and nest a few remote islands off our west coast in the summer.

Manx Shearwaters

The best place to see these birds is off the coast of Pembrokeshire in West Wales, especially the area of sea between the islands of Skomer and Skokholm. These islands are managed by the South and West Wales Wildlife Trust and boats to the islands and cruises to see the Shearwaters are oparated by Dale Sailing.

Designed to weave and glide effortlessly over the wave tops, Shearwaters are clumsy and therefore vulnerable on land so they will only visit their nests at night and ideally those nights when it is misty and especially dark. Their chief predators are the Greater and Lesser Black-backed Gulls which ambush the birds at night as they come onto the island, where they nest in the darkness of underground burrows.. By walking around the nest sites on mornings following dark nights, dozens and sometimes hundreds of carcases can be found. However the nesting densities are so great that such predation does not affect the overall population and such natural selection could be viewed as beneficial.

Future blogs will highlight more about the UKs brilliant wildlife.

A rainy spring with the Bluebells

May 25, 2012 by Michael

We are well into spring in the UK

In recent weeks their has been so much rain that two weeks after the first severe downpours started, the water is still running down the lanes and filling the streams that run through the Charnwood valleys. This is the Ulverscroft brook which bisects the Lea Meadows , which is one of the nature reserve gems owned and managed by the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust.

This rain was much needed as we have had two very dry winters. Rain is welcomed by all wildlife and none so more than the plants.

In nearby woods the Bluebells are at their best. No matter what the weather, rain will never spoil the magnificence of a Bluebell wood and

are many such woods in the National Forest.

A bluebell wood, one of many in the National Forest.

On the days when the sun shines, butterflies make the most of this blue bonanza of fragrance. Butterflies such as the Green-veined White, Orange Tip and Brimstone .

According to the British Butterfly Conservation Society, despite the good start in March, much of this spring from April into May has been poor for butterflies.

The reason for this is that butterflies need warmth from the sun to power their wings for flight, given a little sunshine and butterflies will fly and fly as often as they can, for there is no time to loose, looking for a mate.

Remote camera trapping

April 26, 2012 by Michael

I have recently started to use camera traps in a local wood.

The point is not necessarily to get great photographs but to understand what animals are present and to understand their movements.

I have had one remote camera stolen so am now being very careful where I place my new ones. I do have permission to be in this otherwise private wood and to undertake photography and this is important if you are thinking of doing this sort of work. I have been reasonable happy with the results so far, here are a few of them.

I only position my remote camera close to the set entrance once a week, to avoid disturbance.

The vast majority of my successful pictures have been of a fox and they take the majority of the peanuts I put out.

This fox has stood still for a moment, usually they are on the move and the image quality is very poor.

Lea Meadows Nature Reserve April 2012

April 15, 2012 by Michael

The Bullhead fish

The Lea Meadows nature reserve is to be found in the Ulverscroft valley, on the Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, England. The reserve is bisected by a brook which rises in the hills a mile upstream

and as this catchment area is low intensity pasture land where few if any chemicals are used ,the brook remains clear and unpolluted by modern farming practices.

Either side of the brook lie meadows which have probably not been ploughed since medieval times. Such lack of disturbance means that the meadows are rich in wild flowers.

Lea Meadows nature reserve

Although the brook may appear small and inconsequential, its cleanliness is rare in the modern industrial midlands of England. The brook is characterful, some sections with gravel islands, some with muddy edges.

Where the water flows over a harder rock the water is only two fingers deep, however in other places, where the gound underneath is soft, the water has cut down and will come up to your knees.

The course of the brook twists and turns between alders, hawthorn and oak, tight bends have created small banks and winter floods have led to the creation of small ‘ox-bows’ here and there.

Each of these tiny variations and nuances in the character of the brook provides a multitude of niches where wildlife can specialise and thrive.

Bullhead fish are common, in April they lay eggs under stones in the brook. Here you can see the larvae, each surrounded by a spherical yolk sac which sustains the larvae until they hatch.

The eggs of the Bullhead are guarded by the male fish until they hatch.

Bullhead males have a large mouth and for the size of the fish a large set of fins, which helps to keep the fish steady in the fast flowing, shallow water where they live.

They do not have scales and their skin colouration of mottled dark browns camouflages them well.

Bullheads are nocturnal and at night feed off invertebrates especially along the vegetated edges of the brook but during the day they conceal themselves on the bottom of the brook amongst the stones.

The Canadian Ski Marathon

February 13, 2012 by Michael

The Canadian Ski Marathon is an epic winter event situated in Quebec. Skiers come from all over Canada and the USA, as well as other northern countries such as Norway and Sweden. Skiers of all abilities and ages can participate by choosing any number of course sections through the snow covered western Laurentian mountains and its surrounding forests and frozen lakes.

For those who dare to ski the full 100 mile course -a true test of endurance- they earn the right to call themselves Coureur de Bois and in so doing take on the challenge of Canada’s winter.

To see more photos click here!!!

Start of the Ski Marathon

Beginning of the ski marathon

Geoff White completes his first GOLD Ski Marathon

Urban crow roost

February 2, 2012 by Michael

In Ottawa city, thousands of crows fly in to roost every winters night. Birds do this as cities are slightly warmer than the surrounding countryside and therefore they conserve vital energy, energy required to survive. Crows are intelligent and highly social, two traits that enable them to compete successfully .

Check out Wildshots other crow images