There are thirty two species of mammal on the reserve’s lists, thirteen of them bats
Continue reading “Mammals”Mammals
Corvidae
There are eight native species of corvid, of which we have six on the reserve’s species lists.
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Slug Pellets
Hedgehog Awareness Week: part 3
No matter what it says on the tin, any chemical treatment that kills slugs or snails will, in some way or another, be bad for hedgehogs and, in our opinion, should be avoided.
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Ten Facts
Slow worm
ONE: Slow worms go by many different local names: deaf adder, blindworm, long-cripple and hazelworm are just some of them…
Continue reading “Ten Facts”No Mow May
Have you joined Plantlife’s No Mow May Movement yet?
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Red admiral
Ashley Wicks, a regular visitor to the reserve, has sent us a picture of a very early red admiral.
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Buzzard
Cheryl Cronnie, a regular contributor, has sent in photographs of a buzzard (Buteo buteo) perched in one of the reserve’s veteran oaks.
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Blue tit nest part 3
In the header photograph, the blue tit’s eggs are lying in a cup shaped nest lined with soft feathers that are obviously intended to keep the eggs warm. But around the edge of the cup there are larger feathers; their purpose is not so clear.
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Blue tit nest part 2
After yesterday’s video post, a reader asked what triggered the blue tit female (it is always the female blue tit that builds the nest) to stop collecting moss and to begin collecting what he called fluffy stuff. While failing entirely to find an answer to his question, I found a treasure trove of research into blue tit nests and the materials they use to build them.
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Pied wagtail
The car park wagtails are a pair of grey wagtails but we have pied wagtails too.
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Blue tit colours
The blue tit (Parus caeruleus) has been classified as sexually monochromatic, which means that male and female are the same colour. This classification is based, though, on human colour perception, not on blue tit colour perception.
Continue readingChaffinch
According to the RSPB, trichomonosis, an avian disease caused by a parasite called Trichomonas gallinae, has reduced the UK’s chaffinch population by 34% in the last decade.
Audio: Common Chaffinch by Krzysztof Deoniziak (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED) xeno-canto.org XC884915
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Muntjac
A message from an early-bird dog walker:
I spotted a Muntjac deer this morning, about 5 o’clock whilst walking my dog, who luckily is always kept on his lead. It was In the hedgerow that runs along the path from the carpark towards Studley, just one by itself only. Is this a species you are aware of?
I was very surprised to see it so close to a built up area which has quite considerable footfall. But for well over a year I haven’t haven’t seen the larger deer which frequented the park.
Common pipistrelle
Our common pipistrelles (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) are out of hibernation
Continue readingMoorhen
We have a resident moorhen on one of the reserve’s lesser-known ponds.
Continue reading “Moorhen”Brimstone
According to the National Trust, gardens in the south and west of England are coming into flower up to four weeks ahead of schedule. The warm weather and such an early source of nectar will bring our butterflies out of hibernation; one of the earliest reported in the reserve, nearly every year, is the brimstone.
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BTO
The British Trust for Ornithology has been collecting information about the UK’s birds since 1932.
Continue reading “BTO”Coot
Coot (Fulica atra), small black waterbirds, close relatives of moorhens, visit the reserve in the spring. They have never nested here but we live in hope.
Continue reading “Coot”Ten Facts…
…about hedgehogs
ONE: the BBC’s Gardeners’ World Magazine, which surveys its many readers annually, has just announced that urban hedgehog numbers appear to be rising. Excellent!
Continue reading “Ten Facts…”Field vole
Our field voles (Microtus agrestis) are having a winter break from their long breeding season. They don’t hibernate; instead they grow a thick, very dense coat to shield them against the cold, and their metabolic rate almost doubles in order to maintain their body temperature.
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Fact File
Common name: Roe deer; the male is called a roebuck, the female a doe and their young are kids or fawns.
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Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 