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Into the unknown

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Clavicorona taxophila  - a very rare fungus - new for Lancashire - microscopic examination was necessary to clinch the indentification - kindly performed by Richard Shotbolt ('oil-filled gloeocystidia is good confirmation' - apparently).   This a Red Data List species. The last record on the FRDBI   database  is 9 yeas ago in Wiltshire. A small mammal scurried across a clearing in front of me – a Red Squirrel! If I’d spotted the Beast of Bodmin I’d have been only marginally less surprised (mainly because Bodmin is in Cornwall). I had been exploring an area of the patch that I normally  turn my nose at – what amounts to a small, unmanaged, wood comprised of Leyland Cypress.  I’d never seen any reason to actually venture in there, after all it’s only Leylandii – more famous  for being the weapon of choice  for ‘Neighbours from Hell’, than for having any wildlife value. My recent fungus forays, however, have sent me to previously unexplored nooks and crannies of the p

The colours are all in your head man!

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The colours of a Kestrel are 'behavioural' - they are designed to effect the eyes, therefore the brains, therefore the behaviour of other animals - of other species - camouflage, and the same species - communication. Autumn is a time when, probably more than any other, we’re aware of colour in nature.   At the risk sounding like Philomena Cunk ….but what is colour?   The greenness of a leaf isn’t something inherent in a leaf - it’s a sense perception in the brain. Sunlight hits the leaf, chrolophyll absorbs certain wavelengths of light to produce sugars by   photosynthesis.   The wavelengths which aren’t   absorbed are reflected. This light hits our eyes when we look at a leaf, - the brain interprets this with a sensation of “green”.* Colours are things our brain invents – they help us make sense of, and navigate through the world. Our  brains are therefore measuring lengths - the wavelengths reflected by different objects in the world - this give us useful inf

Lights, Camera, Spider

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Giant House Spider -  (Eratigena atrica). The presence of palpal bulbs indicates that this is a male. These are used to transfer sperm to the female seminal receptacles during mating. Most of the  house Spiders that are found in houses in autumn are males searching for females. Father Ted: "OK, one last time. These are small  (holds up toy cows)... but the ones out there (points out of the window) are far away. Small... far away... (Dougal shakes head in confusion) ah forget it!” See the excerpt here I can imagine Father Ted would have an even harder time trying to explain these spider close ups. Father Ted: "This is small  (points to spider)... but this one (points to the photo) is highly magnified. Small... magnified... (Dougal shakes head in confusion) ah forget it!” My makeshift spider 'studio' Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus). The protruding structure at the base of the abdomen is the epigyne. This is used to receive  and direct

Bouncing Redwings

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The first inklings of dawn were etching the sky as I made my way to my vantage point.  Redwings calls were all around – a chorus of  ‘tseeep’. I was hoping for a repeat of Wednesday’s Thrush spectacular I had counted 2,580 Redwings passing over in an hour and a half after sunrise. It was exhilarating standing under the flight path of these migrating birds. Distant pepper specks, speeding towards me morphing into tight overhead flocks of Redwings, then careering into the distance becoming specks again. No sooner had one flock melted into the horizon that another appeared - chasing its tail. Migrating Thrushes I was only able to watch for an hour and  half – almost certainly missing the early and later flocks – I think my count would doubled if I’d been able to watch for longer. Monday had also seen a mini-fall of thrushes on the patch which included 2 splendid male Ring ouzels. Thursday was clearly going to be different, the calls I was hearing were grounded birds t

Homo patchiensis

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We are all Homo patchiensis. To explore our surroundings - our patch - taking a close interest in the plants and animals is in our nature. Our hunter-gather ancestors had an intimate understanding of, and connection with, their patch – their survival depended on it.  The change to agriculture, and seeing ourselves as apart from nature - controlling nature - happened only in a recent blink of an evolutionary eye. So, the brains that equipped us for hunting and gathering are the brains we have to this day - we're wired the same way. 10,000 years ago we would have recognised most of the plants that grew in our area – which were poisonous, which were good to eat, which would have fruits later on, which were medicines. We would have been avid bird watchers.  We would have been familiar with the mammals, which were dangerous, which needed a certain technique to hunt. Our Mesolithic brains could store enormous amounts of information about our immediate surroundings – just as our Ch

Chiffchaffs! Why?

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The three great mysteries of science: what is dark matter?  how did life begin? what's behind the green door? To this can be added a fourth: why do Chiffchaffs chase other birds? It's something I see very frequently at this time of year. Typically a Chiffchaff will watch a  Blue tit and wait for it to take off. The Chiffchaff then chases the tit around the garden, exhibiting a piece of behaviour known as 'giving it merry hell'. Why do they do it? They seem to expend a huge amount of energy on this, seemingly, frivolous pursuit. I've puzzled over this for, literally, decades.  Back in the 90`s I wrote to Jim Flegg at the BTO about this - he replied 'That`s easy - it`s defending a feeding territory'. To me that just doesn't ring true. For a start they aren't fussy about their targets - I've seen Chiffchaffs chase a whole range of species including a Great-spotted Woopecker on one occasion.  It's like the feisty small boy at

Rare

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The unprepossessing creature (unkind people might call it 'drab') on the right, is possibly the rarest living organism I’ve ever seen. I caught this tiny moth in the trap and took a couple of photos. However, the ‘micros’ are hard work. Usually the process is as follows: skim quickly through the book and don’t find it look more carefully through the book and don’t find it by the third pass I’ve usually narrowed it down and by a process of elimination I sometimes find it Occam’s Razor and swear words often do the trick. On this occasion the third, fourth and fifth scans of Micro Moths of Great Britain and Ireland failed to reveal the identity of the tiny chappy. Often I’m convinced that  it isn’t in the book, but on this occasion I was proved  right - it wasn't. After handing it over to the experts it turned out to be Blastobasis rebeli. There are just 3 previous Lancashire records and not a  lot in the whole country. It is fairly new to s