The Natural Stuff Diary

A walk around one of my favorite fresh water sites revealed signs of otters. These mustelids mark their territories with spraints.They usually pick areas near the water but often a meter or two away on an elevated site.The spraints are made up of fish remains and are dark or white with a sweet smell.

Here is a bitch otter eating a small fish whilst swimming on her back. Her dog was a few hundred yards away in another direction.

otters have now mated and will soon be looking for holt sites. otters move around quite a bit at this time of year especially dog otters looking for females to mate with, although the season has almost passed now. Many animals succumb to road traffic, or even get caught in lobster or crab pots. One year at least two otters were  found drown in eel traps. This specimen was very small for a dog otter at this time of year and was possibly last years runt. It may not have survived for long had it not been caught in a crayfish trap.The animal was covered in castor bean ticks most unusual for otters and would suggest that it spent a long time away from water in fields or woodland.

It has an orange mark on its underside.Frog spawn developed very quickly in the warm sun and here we can see the tadpoles eating a dead member of their own kind, possible their parent.

The heathlands are warmer than the surrounding habits ,and temperatures are regularly several degrees warmer than other places. The sun may feel warm, but on the ground it is much warmer. Reptiles spend the cooler hours basking in the open but in the case of the smooth snake(coronella austriaca),half hidden under the heather, they can be difficult to see. They are more easily fond under refugia. This splendid male has just shed his skin and thermoregulates under a piece of tin at dusk. Snakes are active now and come out of hibernation.Many will have started their courting rituals and moved away from the hibernaculum. Males of most species of snakes and lizards in temperate regions of the world emerge from their underground sites before the females to gain a head start on activating their reproductive systems and be ready for emerging females a week or two later.Smooth snakes mate in the autumn as well as the spring or early summer.Adders(vipera berus),only mate in early spring.

The slow worm(Anguis fragilis) is a legless lizard, not a snake, and is common; some people tend to think that they are smooth snakes because they have a smooth skin.The smooth snake is so names because it does not have scale keels like most other snake species and they feel silky to the touch.slow worms can live a long time ,one survived for 54 years in captivity.In the wild I am sure that they can live for twenty, and as they do, they become shorter as they loose their tails and they become thicker. The individual shown is an old female, she has a dorsal line, unlike mature males,and she has dark mottling towards the front. In mature males these marks are often light blue spots.

The common tiger beetle(cicindela campestris) are now active in sandy places; they are common on the heaths and are predatory on other small invertebrates.

A Puss moth has just hatched from my stashed cocoons.I reared several of them last summer, yet I had to cut their hard silken cocoons from off unsuitable surfaces.I then wrapped them in tissue paper to replicate the natural micro environment and hope that they emerged. It worked and here is a newly emerged adult on top one of the tissue cocoons with the exit hole visible.

Another moth that I found is Esperia sulphurella, a tiny micro moth;it must have emerged from some of the wood that I store for the fire or taxidermy mounts.Many species of micro moths feed in dead wood.

Moles are on the move. They often leave their cosy winter nests in search for greener pastures with more worms which are their staple diet.The males also need to look for females, and in doing so they often get killed on roads.This one was dead by Corfe castle.

I took its body as I often do with most road killed animals for taxidermy purposes.

The weather has not been very good down here, when every where else has had milder than usual temperatures, Bournemouth has been chilly. On the heaths though ,things get a little warmer and usually several degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside. Warm enough for cold blooded animals such as this male common lizard (Zoocoma vivipera) to bask in the sunshine.Most reptile species are out of hibernation and have cleared their muggy heads of torpor, and will soon be going about their courting business. Many spider species are busy also including hunting spiders. This Alopecosa accentuata is also basking on the warm heathland ground.

And  solitary bees such as this female Andrena species bask on tree trunks.

Mad March hares are running riot across open farmland asserting their dominance, especially among females, and the males wait for the rights to mate, often chasing does over many fields. The hare is different from the rabbit in several ways, one being the fact that they do not construct burrows to live in but live above ground and move around open areas often running over long distances. They have huge hearts and much blood. They are more similar to antelope in many ways. Hare does give birth to usually two well formed kits which are left in forms on the open ground. They are fully furred, open eyes and they can run.They have dark flesh when cooked, like venison and it even tastes like it.

Hares have disappeared from many areas lately, even in strong hold areas.

Some hares have been born earlier than usual with this road killed specimen , half grown leveret. There is a common buzzard alongside as a comparison

I found a worm climbing a tree. This  species is not the common earthworm but is similar. They are often referred to as eel worms and can grow to forty centimeters in length. Here they live in the ancient oak woodland and when it rains heavily for hours they emerge and move across the forest floor.

This species has a yellow tail tip.

Some interesting fungi such as this  witches butter (Exida plana) on dead beach sticks have been fruiting.                                                               .

hibernating common garden snails(helix aspersa) have not yet dared emerge. Here a few are nestled inside the trunk of an ancient yew tree.

Great, frog spawn has appeared once again in the pond that I built at the Bournemouth Natural Science Society garden, much more than last year, the product of at least ten females, which may mean that there are over thirty and up to fifty frogs that have been busy. There are always at least twice as many males to females, and at times in some colonies, one female to half a dozen males. This may seem unfair but it is very fair as it allows for competition, jousting out the weaker males and ensuring that the stronger survive to spread their genes. The pond is now in its third year and already sports an array of wild species including three species of damselfly, one dragonfly, common toads and palmate newts, diving beetles and many more invertebrates.

Now for the pie part! I am  rather partial to frogs in stir fry but not in a pie, sometimes many get killed on roads around breeding ponds along with toads. These amphibians taste wonderful  and if there are several dead bodies, I will pick them up and take them home to eat. Another species that also likes frogs are magpies (the pie bit). They often lurk about during the early morning at breeding sites picking them off. Magpies are very resourceful and intelligent birds, one reason as to why they have become so common. They do not do as much harm as people often think and as for songbird nestling and egg eating, data suggests that they do not have as much impact on overall numbers of birds as once thought. Domestic cats kill  millions of birds in the UK every year! That’s food for thought.

This time of year is one of the worst times to find road killed animals and as usual I came across a body of a badger, on taking it I noticed a large flea on its face. I rarely find fleas on badgers, usually lice and it had some of these (see a past post) I only found the single specimen.A road killed roe buck provided the ideal opportunity to look closely at its growing antlers, here is one that fell off and shows the red colour of the blood that fills the veins that provide it with minerals for growth ,and the velvet fur keeps them warm from the cold as these deer grow them during the winter time. The growing tip has broken off as one can see that it is still cartilage like and soft.More road kill : this red tailed buzzard looks like a long legged buzzard (Buteo rufinus). I find many dead buzzards and among them are the odd individuals, mainly just colour variations of Buteo buteo: the common buzzard ,but at times different species or races can be found. There are so many buzzards in Britain now, and many people just assume that they are the common form, but a closer look at them may prove surprising . The long legged buzzard is a migrant and may move south west during cold winters from Europe. The Eastern form of the common buzzard also looks like the long legged so it can be very confusing. So I am none the wiser !

This time of year is great for searching for lost treasures:the dead annual vegetation being at its lowest , and new growth not yet started, one can see through areas that were too dense and spot all kinds of things especially animal bones, but unfortunately not all are of natural happenings, such as these three skulls of sika stags, dumped by poachers. One is old and moss covered while two others are later additions, and had the antlers removed.

I also found this roe head, small, but with an extra tine on its right antler ,although both had been eaten down by rodents, something that occurs naturally and one reason as to why antlers do not hang around for long.Deer as well as foxes, voles, mice,squirrels and rats all eat antlers as they are so rich in nutrients.

This one had been more likely to have been eaten by a big cat (see big cat diary ).

Looking at birch polypore (piptoporus betulinus), I came across the parasitic fungi on the underside.(name to be added ). The bracket fungus attaches itself to weakened birches but only damages the tree when it is dying, then takes over, breaking it down.

Here is the close up of the parasitic fungus on the underside of the bracket of a nearby infected specimen.

I found this primrose in bloom in the snow on the Longleat estate in Wiltshire.

Nearby was an acorn that had impaled itself on the barb of a wire fence.

The cold weather creates lots of interesting formations of frost particles, here the forms are on the roof of my car.

It is interesting to see that each form of crystal is different, from simple angular structures to more complex leaf like ones, all mirroring the other forms to be found in nature, governed by the laws of physics.

The New Zealand flatworm ( Arthurdendyus triangulatus) is becoming more common in gardens, having been introduced via garden centers through potted plants. It is a predator of earthworms and is usually of a muddy brown colour, however juvenile animals are of a peachy flesh colour like this one,and attain darker pigment as they grow, up to 20cm. It was found by friend Mark Spencer ,a gardener and entomologist in the Christchurch area.

flatworms are not slugs but do possess slime . A variety of slugs that I have come across lately are pictured below.The common black slug (   Arion  ater ) is often orange or cream in southern Britain, here is a bi-colored specimen. The species always has an orange sole fringe, and often rocks from side to side when disturbed .

The species eat mainly carrion and fungi and do not eat living plants, so they are not a pest in the garden. Another species is the leopard slug (Limax maximus), a pretty and very variable species.

Similar but much smaller are the tree slugs(Limax marginatus)which also varies and two different forms are depicted below climbing a tree.

In damp woods ,sometimes thousands of these plaster the beach or ash trees when conditions are right. A lesser known species(Limax pseudoflavus) is under recorded in Britain but seems to be more common in Ireland. Here a specimen is on natural acid grassland on  the Bournemouth sea cliff.It may be the more common L.flavus, which in itself is thought to be of Mediterranean in origin. Both species are easily confused.

The form of fungi and the wood on which they often grow can be most spectacular in a photograph. On a visit to the Oxford University Natural History Museum, a display of imported west African tree stumps adorn the yard in an exhibition called ‘the ghost forest.’ Some of the fungi is splitgill fungi, (schzophyllum commune). It is an uncommon fungi in the UK , but as it is a cosmopolitan species, it may actually be the African version, although I have found it in Sumatra and India.  The UK species seems to look slightly different and I have only found it once in Dorset

Below is the species from Sumatra. There are small regional differences.

The bottom picture is a close up of the Oxford specimen

The Chinese new year will be of the dragon. A visit to the Uffington horse in south Oxford shire  was remarkable. Myself and a documentary maker visited the site as it was mainly his interest and idea that the so called horse was not a horse, I must admit, it had passed my mind many years ago, but I did not dwell on it, but whilst being involved in the making the documentary on big cats in Britain, I not only liked the idea, but became hooked on the possibility of the depiction actually meaning to represent a different animal:that animal more likely  being a cat. It has all the dimensions of a large cat such as a leopard. I think it possible that given the fact that  the hill side figure etched in the chalk substrate is more than 3000 years old, it could well have depicted the animal which may have lived on for much longer than previously thought. Science is very often wrong, and changes its tune. The lynx was thought to have been extinct by a certain time only for remains to have been dated many hundreds of years later. There is actually no logical reason for the leopard to have vanished from the UK about ten thousand years ago, other than man killing it out of existence, but there is no historic records of it living alongside the early people, or at least none that we recognize. so perhaps this is it?

The dimensions of the animal such as the higher rear end, long tail,muscular neck  certainly fit a feline animal.The two protrusions from under its jaw may suggest fangs or at least whiskers!

This is a view from the upright ear looking down its oblong shaped head and one can see the whiskers or teeth protruding . The round central object is the eye. The landscape is peculiar and ancient.Dragon hill is underneath it.

On the line of its neck, was a mole hole.One rarely sees the actual tunnels of this animal.There was a chamber before it and when the spoil heap or mole hill was removed, the tunnel was exposed.

Red kites were all around the site and at the fiery sunset, many came to roost in nearby trees .They seemed to carry an essence of the dragon, especially with their serpentine tongue like tails and their red colours.

The smooth dor beetle (Geotrupes stercorarius) can be seen trundling across the forest floor looking for animal dung. Here many specimens have found a fox scat. They break it up and bury pieces ,where they then lay eggs on it.

The Sika deer are often picturesque. There movements and expression create an image of wild movement,of nature and emotion. I love them and snap them often. They are always on the lookout for danger. This small group of hind are always watchful, for the predator is always lurking in the reed beds!

It is not the fox they are wary of. It is the possibility of leopard,lynx or puma. They check and re check, just to be sure.

The fox likes to sunbathe in the cool winter, there is small warmth from the sun at this time, but he laps it up none the less. He watches the deer watching him. He will wait for the cat to make the kill, then scavenge after, but he must be careful, for he could be dinner too.