Butterflies are rather like Goldilocks, preferring conditions to be neither too hot nor too cold, but “just right”. Under climate change, the temperature at any given time of summer is, on average, getting warmer, leaving butterflies (and their nocturnal cousins, the moths) with the challenge of how to remain in their optimal temperature window.
Nitrogen in the air is one of the greatest threats to our wild plants, lichens and fungi, yet few people have even heard about it. Plantlife’s new report We need to talk about Nitrogen raises the alarm about its devastating impacts.
Anyway, after some fun time with my Dictionary of Entomology, (which is much more of an encyclopaedia than a dictionary), and of course Google, I have great pleasure in presenting my one stop shop for those of you who wonder how insect orders got their names. Here they are, all in one easy to access place with a few fun-filled facts to leaven the mixture.
“I have loved nature for as long as I can remember, certainly before I was old enough to go to school. I used to spend hours peering into our garden pond in the 1960’s and marvelling at the different creatures to be found living there. There were many frogs, toads and newts that used the pond for spawning and I would watch the progress of their tadpoles each year. There was much invertebrate life there too which was also a fascination to me. We lived about a mile from Gatwick airport and one negative aspect of this was that I often had to use newspaper on the surface of the pond to take off the thin coating of oil that accumulated, presumably from fuel dumping.
There are around 650 species of spider in the UK alone. That’s a lot! Some spiders can be identified by eye, others require hand lenses and many even require microscopes to correctly identify them to species level. Most people find spiders creepy though, so never get close enough to identify them in the field, let alone choose to look at them down a microscope. Earlier this year, however, I attended the Tomorrow’s Invertebrate Recorders course run by the FSC Biolinks team during which I chose to spend a whole day learning microscopic identification of spiders.
Stephen Moss has written a round-up of nature books for many years and this is the second year when it has appeared here on this blog. Stephen is course leader of the MA Travel & Nature Writing at Bath Spa University.
Juniper, a rare conifer which is used to flavour gin, is making a comeback in southern England with the help of a conservation rescue mission, Plantlife has said.
Since 2019 is the Year of the Fly I thought it was time to dust off my boyhood interest in flies and see how many families of flies I could see through the year. Each time I see one from a new family I will write a post, and by the end of the year I hope to know my way around them.
The days are shortening and the temperature is falling. This is a signal to deciduous (broadleaf) trees that it is time to close down for the winter, conserve energy and prevent it from losing precious nutrients.
Data collected from electronic tags retrieved from 47 journeys made by the Farne Island Arctic Terns, has revealed for the first time how climate change might affect their behaviour.
How big is the biggest insect wingspan in the world? One foot wide, wingtip to wingtip. This encounter in the rainforests of Brazil is on I’ll always remember. http://www.instagram.com/phil_torres
Light pollution is a significant but overlooked driver of the rapid decline of insect populations, according to the most comprehensive review of the scientific evidence to date.
A study has identified the genes that give trees resistance to ash dieback, which arrived in the UK in 2012 and has now spread to almost every part of the country.
One of the longest standing mysteries of migration has finally been solved after scientists discovered where the UK’s Painted Lady butterfly population goes each autumn.
As Australia experiences record-breaking drought and bushfires, koala populations have dwindled along with their habitat, leaving them “functionally extinct.”
There are two issues in dormouse conservation that need addressing – population decline and range decline.
The rate of population decline, stated most recently in People’s Trust for Endangered Species State of Britain’s Dormice 2019 report is that populations of hazel dormice have fallen by half since 2000. The range decline refers to the 17 counties where dormice are now extinct since the end of the 19th century.
The UK Government spent almost £20m less on tree planting in the financial year 2017-18 than it did in 2014-15, according to an analysis of official figures by Friends of the Earth (FotE).
Mallard by Peter Hassett, Summer Leys 6 March 2019
Officials are allowing thousands of wild duck eggs to be destroyed, killing the unhatched ducklings, in part because it is claimed the birds pose a threat to cyclists.
In a fascinating comparison of weight gained by Red Knot and Ruddy Turnstone during spring migration in Delaware Bay, on America’s east-coast flyway, Anna Tucker and colleagues show that Knot are far more vulnerable to annual variations in their main food supply than more flexible Turnstones, which target the same food if it is available. Given that changing weather patterns, associated with a warming climate, are expected to make resource availability harder to predict, the authors suggest that populations of migrant shorebirds (waders) that rely on a specific resource being available at the right time are likely to be more vulnerable – as has become apparent for Delaware Bay Knot.
Lion populations across Africa have declined by 43% over the past 21 years, due range of factors, including conflict with cattle farmers, loss of prey and habitat, and at times, unsustainable trophy hunting, according to the wild cat conservation charity Panthera. They are now facing a new threat – poaching for body parts.
The latest Wild Bird Populations in the UK, 1970-2018 report has been published by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), analysing the populations of British birds. Skylarks and song thrushes show short-term increases, but some birds such as turtle doves are in steep decline.
A new page, Summary Minutes of Committee Meetings, has been added to the website under the About Us menu so that you can read a summary of the Society’s committee meetings.
White-faced Darter is a specialist of lowland peatbogs, and spends most of its life as aquatic larvae living in deep bog pools. Unfortunately, lowland peatbogs in England have experienced decades of decline as a result of human activity, including drainage to create farmland, as well as the planting of commercial forests. As peatbogs disappeared, so did the White-faced Darter, until only a handful of their original sites remained, and the species became one of the UK’s rarest dragonflies. White-faced Darter were absent from Cheshire for over a decade, until Cheshire Wildlife Trust developed an ambitious project to help bring the species back.
It has been less than two weeks since the Chair of the RSPB’s Council, Kevin Cox, made his announcement about our desire to review our policy on game bird shooting and associated land management.
What many of us do get in gardens, however, is duckweed – those floating plants that individually look like a tiny water-lily leaves but en masse can quickly carpet the surface of a pond.
He is the most beloved figure in Britain, and, at 93, a global superstar. His films long shied away from discussing humanity’s impact on the planet. Now they are sounding the alarm – but is it too late?
We asked Dr Laura Foster, head of clean seas at the Marine Conservation Society, and Thomas Stanton, a PhD researcher at the University of Nottingham, questions about microplastics and what society can do to combat the problems they cause.
There’s a growing body of evidence that shows access to high-quality green spaces and an environment rich in biodiversity brings benefits for human health and well-being. But what if you live in an estate where there is a lot of housing? Or an urban area dominated by road infrastructure? It might be difficult to even see a green space, let alone spend time in one. Everyone should have an opportunity to support wildlife in their local area and get the same benefits associated with urban green space.
For 50 years, researchers have thought that moths evolved ears to detect the ultrasonic calls of attacking bats—but a new study shows that ears came first.
Many insects moving north in response to climate change find they have nowhere to go in Britain’s intensively managed landscapes, according to new research.
Once persecuted to extinction, white-tailed eagles are making a comeback in Scotland, following several reintroduction projects dating back over 40 years. And recently, some young white-tailed eagles have also been released in the south of England.
Red-Tailed Bumblebee by Harry Appleyard, Tattenhoe 11 April 2016
Bee nutrition and parasites are getting quite some attention these days. Which I’m very happy about, as I prefer to see bee health in a broader context than only the absence of diseases. I discussed this already in some posts like recently the one on honey bee welfare or the One Health Concept and the risks from managed bees for non-managed pollinators. However, I didn’t go in-depth with the role nutrition plays in bee health.
There are two distinct races of brent geese. Dark-bellied brent geese breed in northern Russia and spend the winter in southern and eastern England. Pale-bellied Brent geese breed mostly in Canada and Greenland and spend the winter mostly in Ireland.
The discovery of a female Florida panther lying with a broken leg on a verge outside the town of Naples, south of Tampa, triggered a widespread rescue dash.
Conservationists, who had previously fitted a tracking collar to the animal, were aware she had recently given birth. The kittens would not survive long on their own, they realised, and so an urgent search for them was launched.
Red deer, fallow deer and sika deer are most exciting to watch in the autumn, when the rut begins. But not all deer are the same, so what should you look out for?
One of the greatest conservation tools to emerge in recent years has been satellite-tagging technology. Whether following the journeys of migrating cuckoos or shedding light on the dangers facing UK birds of prey, these tiny pieces of technology are becoming increasingly valuable in the conservationist’s mission to save nature.
Remembering Lions is the fourth instalment in the charity book series by the Remembering Wildlife team, and features images donated by more than 70 of the world’s top wildlife photographers.
Butterfly Conservation Upper thames Branch Species Champion’s report on Silver-spotted Skipper summarising changes in distribution and first sightings is now available.
Nepal’s wild tigers increased to 235 in 2018 from only 121 in 2008 due to the conservation efforts of dedicated local people, the Nepali government and Zoological Society of London (ZSL).
Over the last couple of years, I have been involved with the volunteer monitoring of the Chequered Skipper release in Rockingham Forest, firstly with the adult butterflies brought in from Belgium , and then with the butterflies that had emerged from those first adults.
An appreciation of how some species are becoming more common despite unprecedented anthropogenic pressures could offer key insights for mitigating the global biodiversity crisis. Research to date has largely focused on declining species, while species that are becoming more common have received relatively little attention. Macro-moths in Great Britain are well-studied and species-rich, making them an ideal group for addressing this knowledge gap. Here, we examine changes in 51 successful species between 1968 and 2016 using 4.5 million occurrence records and a systematic monitoring dataset. We employ 3D graphical analysis to visualise long-term multidimensional trends in prevalence (abundance and range) and use vector autoregression models to test whether past values of local abundance are useful for predicting changes in the extent of occurrence. The responses of Anthropocene winners are heterogeneous, suggesting multiple drivers are responsible. Changes in range and local abundance frequently occur intermittently through time, demonstrating the value of long-term, continuous monitoring. There is significant diversity among the winners themselves, which include widespread generalists, habitat specialists, and recent colonists. We offer brief discussion of possible causal factors and the wider ecosystem implications of these trends.
A partnership of 70 wildlife organisations, research institutes and government agencies has produced the third State of Nature report, the clearest picture to date of the status of UK plant and animal species. The 2019 report, which follows similar assessments in 2013 and 2016, has revealed average declines in distribution and abundance of five per cent and 13 per cent, respectively, since 1970. Dr Jack Hatfield of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, one of the co-authors of State of Nature 2019, says volunteer recorders are essential to this comprehensive analysis of the health of our natural world…
Nine members of the Society met at Otmoor on a pleasant autumn afternoon which turned out to be a lot warmer than the last Society visit! We were even treated to some late afternoon sunshine which showed off the colours of the Teal and Shoveler that had come out of eclipse, along with at least a dozen snipe snoozing on an island in front of the first screen.
Four Stonechats posed nicely on reeds by the track to the second screen, along with a Reed Bunting. Brown Hares were clearly enjoying the sunshine too. Overhead, flocks of Lapwing and Wigeon sparkled, while Marsh Harriers, Red Kites and Kestrels were seen over the meadows of Greenaways and the reed beds.
Despite reports of sightings of Bearded Tit the previous day, we didn’t manage to see any and had to be satisfied with Marsh Tit. Migrant Hawkers “buzzed” us on the tracks and Cetti’s Warbler provide a soundtrack. Other sightings included Stock Dove and Whinchat along with a strange goose that turned out to be a mix of Canada and Greylag.
Understanding our garden wildlife is becoming increasingly important. Gardenwatch, the UK’s biggest-ever garden audit, was launched on BBC Springwatch in May 2019, and asked people for information on garden features and wildlife across the country. The responses have given us fascinating new information on how people help wildlife in their gardens, and where there is still more that can be done. For example, relatively few people reported leaving leaf litter piles, long grass or rock piles in their gardens, and only a small proportion of people provided homes for wildlife such as bat boxes or Hedgehog houses. The maps show interesting variation across the UK, including the fact that climbers, including autumn-flowering Ivy, are less common in gardens in northern areas.
Have you ever seen a colour-ringed Sanderling and perhaps wondered why it spends the non-breeding* season on a British or Irish beach rather than on one in Portugal, Ghana or even further south? Why fly from Greenland to Namibia, a distance of over 20,000 km, when spending the winter months in the UK or Ireland requires a flight of as little as 3,700 km? Perhaps the chance of survival is greater in other countries or perhaps birds that travel further have a larger lifetime breeding output? A paper by Jeroen Reneerkens and colleagues provides some of the answers.
Moths and other wildlife are being affected by climate change. Species have always evolved to adapt to changing conditions and will continue to do so. The problem with man-made climate change is that it is happening so quickly that our wildlife may not be able to evolve and adapt fast enough.
Butterflies and moths are vital indicators of the health of Europe’s biodiversity and a new project is helping to get a clear picture of butterfly data across the continent.
Meadow flowers by Peter Hassett, Sharpenhoe Clappers 4 August 2019
Governmental agri-environment schemes (AES) aim to improve pollinator abundance and diversity on farmland by sowing wildflower seed mixes. These often contain high proportions of Fabaceae, particularly Trifolium (clovers), which are attractive to some bumblebee species, but not to most of the ~ 240 solitary bee species in the UK. Here we identify wildflowers that are attractive to a greater range of wild bee species.
Martin Kincaid has provided details of the following changes to the published programme:
22nd October: Chas Anderson – Whales and Dolphins of the tropics.
12th November: Practical Evening – Fungi (Postponed form 24th September). Justin Long will lead this microscopy session to look at fungi. Please bring along any specimens you can find on your local patch.
10th December: Kate Wyatt – Wildlife Art. Kate Wyatt is a society member and a renowned wildlife artist based at Westbury Arts Centre. She will talk us through the process of capturing her subjects, including hares, lapwings and goshawks, from first sighting of the animal to a finished artwork.
Each year, nature photographers and enthusiasts alike are brought out of their hides to awe at the amazing winners of Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. 2019’s winning images have just been announced, and are a testament to the long-standing competition.
Many of us enjoy watching hoverflies as they dart around our gardens amongst the bees and wasps. Sometimes, it is hard to tell the difference as many hoverfly species mimic honeybees and bumblebees (there’s even a hoverfly that mimics a hornet!).
Bird songs are common sounds to us all, but why do birds sing? Imagine you’re a male willow warbler, and you’ve just flown 2,400 miles (4000 km) from Africa. It’s spring, and you need to find a mate quickly. However, your home is a woodland and you’re the colour of leaves. What better way of advertising to a passing female that you are here and would make a fine father for her chicks than by having a clear, loud and recognisable song?
Following the news that two of this year’s five brood meddled hen harriers had ‘vanished’ on grouse moors in the north of England in September 2019 (one in County Durham here and one in the Yorkshire Dales National Park here), we now learn that a third harrier has disappeared, also in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
Butterflies are rather like Goldilocks, preferring conditions to be neither too hot nor too cold, but “just right”. Under climate change, the temperature at any given time of summer is, on average, getting warmer, leaving butterflies (and their nocturnal cousins, the moths) with the challenge of how to remain in their optimal temperature window.
Nitrogen in the air is one of the greatest threats to our wild plants, lichens and fungi, yet few people have even heard about it. Plantlife’s new report We need to talk about Nitrogen raises the alarm about its devastating impacts.
Anyway, after some fun time with my Dictionary of Entomology, (which is much more of an encyclopaedia than a dictionary), and of course Google, I have great pleasure in presenting my one stop shop for those of you who wonder how insect orders got their names. Here they are, all in one easy to access place with a few fun-filled facts to leaven the mixture.
Last of the species in country, a female rhino named Iman, ‘died sooner than expected’
There are around 650 species of spider in the UK alone. That’s a lot! Some spiders can be identified by eye, others require hand lenses and many even require microscopes to correctly identify them to species level. Most people find spiders creepy though, so never get close enough to identify them in the field, let alone choose to look at them down a microscope. Earlier this year, however, I attended the Tomorrow’s Invertebrate Recorders course run by the FSC Biolinks team during which I chose to spend a whole day learning microscopic identification of spiders.
Stephen Moss has written a round-up of nature books for many years and this is the second year when it has appeared here on this blog. Stephen is course leader of the MA Travel & Nature Writing at Bath Spa University.
Juniper, a rare conifer which is used to flavour gin, is making a comeback in southern England with the help of a conservation rescue mission, Plantlife has said.
An ‘unnoticed apocalypse’ may have killed half of the world’s insects in the 50 years since 1970, according to a new study.
Since 2019 is the Year of the Fly I thought it was time to dust off my boyhood interest in flies and see how many families of flies I could see through the year. Each time I see one from a new family I will write a post, and by the end of the year I hope to know my way around them.
Latin America’s mammals could be the next to suffer under palm oil production, warns charity.
The days are shortening and the temperature is falling. This is a signal to deciduous (broadleaf) trees that it is time to close down for the winter, conserve energy and prevent it from losing precious nutrients.
Plankton-feeding manta rays and whale sharks may accidentally ingest harmful microplastics in Indonesian oceans.
Click here to view the Bedfordshire Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust newsletter.Data collected from electronic tags retrieved from 47 journeys made by the Farne Island Arctic Terns, has revealed for the first time how climate change might affect their behaviour.
‘Nature’s engineers’ to be introduced on National Trust land in south of England
A study has identified the genes that give trees resistance to ash dieback, which arrived in the UK in 2012 and has now spread to almost every part of the country.
One of the longest standing mysteries of migration has finally been solved after scientists discovered where the UK’s Painted Lady butterfly population goes each autumn.
As Australia experiences record-breaking drought and bushfires, koala populations have dwindled along with their habitat, leaving them “functionally extinct.”
Report claims 400,000 insect species face extinction amid heavy use of pesticides
There are two issues in dormouse conservation that need addressing – population decline and range decline.
The UK Government spent almost £20m less on tree planting in the financial year 2017-18 than it did in 2014-15, according to an analysis of official figures by Friends of the Earth (FotE).
Beavers are to be released at two National Trust sites despite opposition from farmers to their reintroduction.
In a fascinating comparison of weight gained by Red Knot and Ruddy Turnstone during spring migration in Delaware Bay, on America’s east-coast flyway, Anna Tucker and colleagues show that Knot are far more vulnerable to annual variations in their main food supply than more flexible Turnstones, which target the same food if it is available. Given that changing weather patterns, associated with a warming climate, are expected to make resource availability harder to predict, the authors suggest that populations of migrant shorebirds (waders) that rely on a specific resource being available at the right time are likely to be more vulnerable – as has become apparent for Delaware Bay Knot.
Lion populations across Africa have declined by 43% over the past 21 years, due range of factors, including conflict with cattle farmers, loss of prey and habitat, and at times, unsustainable trophy hunting, according to the wild cat conservation charity Panthera. They are now facing a new threat – poaching for body parts.
The latest Wild Bird Populations in the UK, 1970-2018 report has been published by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), analysing the populations of British birds. Skylarks and song thrushes show short-term increases, but some birds such as turtle doves are in steep decline.
Scientists have photographed the silver-backed chevrotain – a species not seen for almost 30 years.
White-faced Darter is a specialist of lowland peatbogs, and spends most of its life as aquatic larvae living in deep bog pools. Unfortunately, lowland peatbogs in England have experienced decades of decline as a result of human activity, including drainage to create farmland, as well as the planting of commercial forests. As peatbogs disappeared, so did the White-faced Darter, until only a handful of their original sites remained, and the species became one of the UK’s rarest dragonflies. White-faced Darter were absent from Cheshire for over a decade, until Cheshire Wildlife Trust developed an ambitious project to help bring the species back.
It has been less than two weeks since the Chair of the RSPB’s Council, Kevin Cox, made his announcement about our desire to review our policy on game bird shooting and associated land management.
What many of us do get in gardens, however, is duckweed – those floating plants that individually look like a tiny water-lily leaves but en masse can quickly carpet the surface of a pond.
We asked Dr Laura Foster, head of clean seas at the Marine Conservation Society, and Thomas Stanton, a PhD researcher at the University of Nottingham, questions about microplastics and what society can do to combat the problems they cause.
There’s a growing body of evidence that shows access to high-quality green spaces and an environment rich in biodiversity brings benefits for human health and well-being. But what if you live in an estate where there is a lot of housing? Or an urban area dominated by road infrastructure? It might be difficult to even see a green space, let alone spend time in one. Everyone should have an opportunity to support wildlife in their local area and get the same benefits associated with urban green space.
They are marching, flying and hopping in their droves because of climate change, say scientists.
For 50 years, researchers have thought that moths evolved ears to detect the ultrasonic calls of attacking bats—but a new study shows that ears came first.
The young pangolin had been illegally caught by poachers and kept in constant darkness.
Study finds that spending time in nature increases children’s wellbeing, motivation, and confidence.
Many insects moving north in response to climate change find they have nowhere to go in Britain’s intensively managed landscapes, according to new research.
There are two distinct races of brent geese. Dark-bellied brent geese breed in northern Russia and spend the winter in southern and eastern England. Pale-bellied Brent geese breed mostly in Canada and Greenland and spend the winter mostly in Ireland.
Chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans are able to understand what others see and believe
How do birds manage to fly so closely together without colliding, and what are the benefits of doing so?
One of the whale populations taken to the edge of extinction by commercial hunting in the early 20th Century has essentially recovered its numbers.
Red deer, fallow deer and sika deer are most exciting to watch in the autumn, when the rut begins. But not all deer are the same, so what should you look out for?
One of the greatest conservation tools to emerge in recent years has been satellite-tagging technology. Whether following the journeys of migrating cuckoos or shedding light on the dangers facing UK birds of prey, these tiny pieces of technology are becoming increasingly valuable in the conservationist’s mission to save nature.
Your bonfire pile looks like a 5* hotel to a hedgehog so please be careful, urges wildlife charity.
Museums found to have a bias towards males in bird and mammal natural history collections.
Plantlife produce a number of interesting guides to wildflowers.Remembering Lions is the fourth instalment in the charity book series by the Remembering Wildlife team, and features images donated by more than 70 of the world’s top wildlife photographers.
The full statistics of how butterfly populations fared in 2018 are now available from the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme.Nepal’s wild tigers increased to 235 in 2018 from only 121 in 2008 due to the conservation efforts of dedicated local people, the Nepali government and Zoological Society of London (ZSL).
Over the last couple of years, I have been involved with the volunteer monitoring of the Chequered Skipper release in Rockingham Forest, firstly with the adult butterflies brought in from Belgium , and then with the butterflies that had emerged from those first adults.
More than a million volunteers are needed to tackle the spread of invasive non-native species in the UK, MPs say.
Welcome to our complete guide to protecting British hedgehogs.A partnership of 70 wildlife organisations, research institutes and government agencies has produced the third State of Nature report, the clearest picture to date of the status of UK plant and animal species. The 2019 report, which follows similar assessments in 2013 and 2016, has revealed average declines in distribution and abundance of five per cent and 13 per cent, respectively, since 1970. Dr Jack Hatfield of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, one of the co-authors of State of Nature 2019, says volunteer recorders are essential to this comprehensive analysis of the health of our natural world…
The abundance of species in Scotland is falling at a faster rate than the UK as a whole, according to a detailed study.
Understanding our garden wildlife is becoming increasingly important. Gardenwatch, the UK’s biggest-ever garden audit, was launched on BBC Springwatch in May 2019, and asked people for information on garden features and wildlife across the country. The responses have given us fascinating new information on how people help wildlife in their gardens, and where there is still more that can be done. For example, relatively few people reported leaving leaf litter piles, long grass or rock piles in their gardens, and only a small proportion of people provided homes for wildlife such as bat boxes or Hedgehog houses. The maps show interesting variation across the UK, including the fact that climbers, including autumn-flowering Ivy, are less common in gardens in northern areas.
Have you ever seen a colour-ringed Sanderling and perhaps wondered why it spends the non-breeding* season on a British or Irish beach rather than on one in Portugal, Ghana or even further south? Why fly from Greenland to Namibia, a distance of over 20,000 km, when spending the winter months in the UK or Ireland requires a flight of as little as 3,700 km? Perhaps the chance of survival is greater in other countries or perhaps birds that travel further have a larger lifetime breeding output? A paper by Jeroen Reneerkens and colleagues provides some of the answers.
Moths and other wildlife are being affected by climate change. Species have always evolved to adapt to changing conditions and will continue to do so. The problem with man-made climate change is that it is happening so quickly that our wildlife may not be able to evolve and adapt fast enough.
Butterflies and moths are vital indicators of the health of Europe’s biodiversity and a new project is helping to get a clear picture of butterfly data across the continent.
Aerial images enable researchers to determine the body mass of whales.
Each year, nature photographers and enthusiasts alike are brought out of their hides to awe at the amazing winners of Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. 2019’s winning images have just been announced, and are a testament to the long-standing competition.
Many of us enjoy watching hoverflies as they dart around our gardens amongst the bees and wasps. Sometimes, it is hard to tell the difference as many hoverfly species mimic honeybees and bumblebees (there’s even a hoverfly that mimics a hornet!).
Following the news that two of this year’s five brood meddled hen harriers had ‘vanished’ on grouse moors in the north of England in September 2019 (one in County Durham here and one in the Yorkshire Dales National Park here), we now learn that a third harrier has disappeared, also in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
This is a quick summary of wader migration, for British and Irish birdwatchers.
