Rat Watch II

Here is a nice picture of some of the first snowdrops of the still new year. 


And ....again a quick warning - those to whom the sight of certain rodents give the heebeegeebees, please go no further. 

More rats coming ..... by vast popular demand....

The rats continue to be very active this mid winter. They seem pretty oblivious to the biting cold, hail, snow and rain and are climbing up and down their old hollow tree with almost as much ease as a squirrel. 

The ivy and old bark obviously helps but they are very agile.

Old mummy rat.

Going up the trunk but pausing for a snack.

Great claws for climbing on rear foot

rat foot.

The voracious sewer or brown rat in a brief contemplative moment

And the reason for climbing? To get close to a bird feeder in this case...but they just cannot quite reach!

'...the great rat; which though but a new comer to this country has been taken too secure a position to be ever removed. This hateful and rapacious creature... sometimes called the rat of Norway... now infests the extent of the British empire.

It swims with great ease, dives with great celerity, and easily thins the fish-pond. In short, scarcely any of the feebler animals escape its rapacity, except the mouse, whioch shelters itself in its little hole , where the Norway rat is too big to follow.'

From a History Of the Earth and Animated Nature by Oliver Goldsmith, first published in 1774 and subsequently republished in many editions, and arguably the first popular natural history book. 

Goldsmith obviously knew the rat well and he was quite right two hundred and sixty years ago that they were here to stay! Attitudes also seem to have changed little towards them.

 

The World's Smallest Porpoise Trembles on the Edge of Extinction.[With further updates]

In fact the vaquita is the smallest of all cetaceans. It is also the most endangered.

It is only found in the northern part of the Gulf of California where its tiny population continues to be hammered by fishing operations. Despite years of warnings and calling on the Mexican authorities to act, if anything, the situation has become more desperate. A significant part of the problem is an illegal trade in the swim bladders of a large fish found in the same waters and which is itself critically endangered, the tortoaba. These internal organs have high value in Asia where they are used as medicine and this high value is now driving organised crime to drive the fishing activities that are killing the last vaquitas.

Here are two blogs on this critical issue:

• Huffington Post HERE by me - this gives the background and was published a few weeks ago; and

• another on the Southern Fried Science site focused on the issue of illegal trade HERE by Naomi Rose and Andrew Wright.

Uncontrolled international wildlife trade - including in many cases with link to Asian markets - is the key factor in driving many species towards extinction. For more information about this here is  HRH Prince William on the issue in a very popular post on the Huffington Post HERE.

Dr Rose an d one of her favourite armrests (Dr Rose is on the right)

Some news here on the vaquita: New York Times

And here:  'Twelve Tasks to save the Vaquita' 

Back Garden Biodiversity Report 2015

Gold finches on Nyger Feeder

So, coffee in one hand, small pair of binoculars in the other, one hour of intense garden monitoring commenced! The day was cloudy, cold but dry and the task: to record as part of the RSPB's annual Big Garden Bird Watch, bird species and the highest number of individuals of each species seen in just sixty minutes.


The RSPB's fully automated reporting system challenged one of my results. I'll come back to this. Here is the score for a garden that is smaller then a tennis court (a metric used by the RSPB) and which is close to farmland and well equipped with bird tables and feeders:

Pied wagtail 1

Starlings 22

Blackbirds 3

Great tits 3

Feral pigeons 19

Robin 1

House sparrows 6

Chaffinches 5

Coal Tits 2

Blue Tit 1

Wood Pigeons 1

Magpie 2

Collared Doves 2

Gold finches 5

Dunnock 1

Some gulls also flew over but these don't count. So that was a total 15 species. 

Pied wagtail (juvenile)

Not seen but regularly present in the garden are wrens (apparently having a tough winter because of the cold), black caps, long-tailed tits and carrion crows. The spectacular gold finches arrived in just the last few minutes of the survey and a small flock of long-tailed tits arrived an hour too late. The feral pigeon numbers are well up on previous years as the word has clearly gone around pigeon-land that we are a soft touch for easy handouts.

Also arriving too late was the juvenile pied wagtail pictured here, which was very promptly seen off by the resident adult.

Pied wagtail juvenile

Pied wagtail (dominant) adult

The record challenged by the RSPB's web-based system was the number of starlings. The programme was obviously checking for mistakes  but twenty two was correct (meticulously counted as they rapidly bounced from feeding on the lawn to hiding and preening in the fringing hedgerow) and about half the size of of the starling flock that regularly is seen here in the summer.

Another regular garden visitor - the North American grey squirrel

'Vermin' Watch 2015

WARNING: If the sight of certain rodents upsets you - go no further. 

I have encountered a rather unusual and totally unexpected wildlife experience this mid-winter. 

An old hollow tree near the canal proves to be home to a family of brown rats. There is at least one large one and three smaller. Like pretty much everyone else I have seen this species before but usually only out of the corner of my eye and often at dusk, as one moves swiftly to hide. However, in this case - with little effort - I have been able to view them without them startling. 

These are wild rats - not tame one - living in a rural situation - the open countryside and farmland in one direction the town in the other and, in between, the old canal from which they regularly drink. 

Is the coast clear?

Our reaction to rats is typically rather visceral. For some it is a phobia but for most we see them as unwelcome vermin, stored food despoilers and disease-bringers. Those who keep them as pet know them to be sociable and intelligent. In fact., whilst rats no longer threaten us with plague (and that was a different species), in the UK they do carry leptospirosis (or Weil's disease) which affects humans and dogs and if not treated can be fatal. (Curiously, my local paper carries a warning this week to look out for this disease in dogs following a local outbreak.) And despite our relatively rare sightings of them (and their unpopularity), they are very common - their population in this part of the world is probably only second to that of humans. 

What has stuck me about them is their agility (they clamber easily all over the old tree), their swift and silent disappearance when disturbed and their peaceful behavior towards each other. Unless anyone objects strongly more news about rats will follow. 

One of the smaller ones peering out from one of several burrow entrances among the roots of the old hollow tree. 

The biggest one ventures out

Garden Watch 2015

Next weekend in the UK marks one of the most amazing examples of 'citizen science' when, at the behest of the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds(RSPB), many of us will sit at our windows for an hour armed with a score sheet. We will record all the details of the birds and any other animals that visit during this time. We will submit this online or by post along with a few details of the area that we viewed.

The RSPB uses this information to monitor the trends in garden birds and other wildlife. Through this they have shown significant declines in common birds like starlings and recoveries in others. It is a great example of where ordinary people can help conservation and half a million took part last year: details HERE and a summary of previous results HERE.

Regular readers will know that a small starling flock visits my small back garden and the pleasure I take in watching them raise their broods. Now we are in the midst of winter; the harshest time of year for all wild creatures. Their numbers are reduced - the flock may have spread out - but they are still visiting and at this time of year their dark oily plumage is peppered with stunning white spotting.

Here are a few images of the starlings and some other birds here in mid-winter.

The two young magpies that grew up in the garden over the summer are still around.

And this pied wagtail has taken up residence - only seen in the garden in the winter.

Dragons for the New Year

I cannot resist sharing just a few more photographs from my visit to the Galapagos Islands last November. This time the focus is exclusively on the marine iguanas which are pretty much ubiquitous around the coasts of the Islands. The bigger ones (well over a meter/yard) are apparently the males and they tend to have a more ruddy hue.... except on the Island of Floreana where they are all rather reddish (something to do with diet).

And if they are not the origins of dragons I will eat my old green tilly hat - or I would do if it had not gone missing from my luggage on the way home.

Anyway these marine dragons, swim by lashing their long tails and are mainly indifferent to people but, if irritated, they sneeze salty snot at you (clearly dragon-fire).

They bask in the sunshine on the sand, rocks and even the pavement in the main town and when warm enough swim out to sea to graze on seaweeds... not entirely dragonish that vegetarian diet but I am sure it is very nourishing.

Basking on the rocks of Floreana

warmed up and off to sea

across the warm sand

through the shallows

and away through the waves!

Fast through the mangrove roots

handsome is as handsome does