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and our first post has just gone up.

Thank you for reading our words and sharing this journey with us.

Claire and Amy and the tribe

Even Sedge Warblers have been known to sing through the night. Artwork by Amy.

Whilst we sleep in our beds at night, we miss some of the most fascinating wildlife. Humans, along with many other animals, are active during the day and use the night time to rest. But there are many nocturnal animals that rest during the day and only emerge at night to hunt. Nocturnal animals have highly adapted senses. Each nocturnal animal has developed a different way to make hunting possible at night. But not all of the animals below are fully nocturnal, they may simply have adapted to coming out at night as well as in the day.

Bats

Although most people think so, none of the world’s bat species are actually blind. They do have poor eyesight though, which is why they mainly hunt using Echolocation. Echolocation is the ability to produce a high-pitched sound which then bounces off nearby objects and gives the bat information about the shape, direction and distance of the object.

Owls

Owls use their keen sense of sight and acute hearing to hunt in the dark. They have large eyes that face forwards. This eye placement gives them fantastic binocular-vision and very precise depth perception. An owl’s facial disc acts like a ‘radar dish’ , guiding sounds into the ear openings. Owls are also excellent at silently flying up to an unassuming mouse. This is because they have special feather adaptations that allow them to fly silently without alerting their prey.

Badgers

Badgers have acute hearing and an excellent sense of smell, makes up for their poor eyesight. They use their well-developed hearing and sense of smell to locate their prey- mainly worm. The badger’s small head, long wedge-shaped body and very short tail makes them excellent diggers which enables them to dig up worms and other food sources such as plant bulbs.

Foxes

Red foxes are mainly nocturnal except for in Summer when they are raising cubs.  Behind the light-sensitive cells in a fox’s eye there is another layer of cells which reflects light back through the eye, increasing the sharpness of it’s vision and allowing to spot prey more easily. The Fox also has brilliant hearing, and can pick up low-frequency sounds like a vole rustling in the grass. They also have whiskers on their faces and their legs, which help them find their way around.

Other birds

Nightjars are nocturnal birds that migrate from Africa to spend the summer in Britain. Their feather patterns look like dead leaves and tree bark so they are perfectly camouflaged during the day when they remain motionless on the ground. But at night, the males perform a prolonged ‘churring’ call that may go on for several minutes. They also add in some different softer calls and a hand-clapping noise, which is the sound of them clapping their wings together.

Apart from our truly nocturnal birds like the Nightjar, and owl species, there are a few diurnal species that are staying  out at night to sing. Because even low-light intensities can trigger song in some birds, in urban areas where there are lamp posts and houses with lights on some birds are carrying on singing in the night. Robins especially can be triggered by street lights etc, and they are very territorial and so they will sing throughout winter. This is why there have been so many reports of people hearing ‘nightingales’ in the middle of a winters night, which have turned out to be robins. Robins have even been known to join in with other singing nocturnal birds, like the nightingale, to which is distantly related.

It has even been suggested that some urban birds  are being forced to sing at night because it is too noisy for their melodies to be heard during the day.

Another notable urban bird that has been learning to hunt at night is the Peregrine falcon. It was first proved in 2007 when the nesting peregrines on derby cathedral where caught on camera bringing food into the nest in the middle of the night. They have been seen catching woodcocks at night (a largely nocturnal bird) and it is believed they also hunt bats.  In fact, just the other night I heard a Peregrine Falcon calling over my house.

interesting links…

Derby Cathedral video proves peregrines hunt by night http://tinyurl.com/yk5dp7f

Robins forced to sing at night to beat traffic noise http://tinyurl.com/39fm8wv

Artwork and article by Amy (nature__lover)

Bempton cliffs- photo by Amy

Would you buy a house that had a 400ft drop and barely enough room to sit down in it? No. But seabirds like Guillemots, Gannets, Razorbills , and Kittiwakes build their nests in the most precarious places you could imagine, some not even bothering to build a nest and literally laying their eggs on bare rock. It seems to be the worst place to raise a family in the world unless you look a little closer, and find out how they do it.

Safety in numbers

Living so high off the ground, keeps you safe from ground predators, like foxes. Another advantage is that seabirds live in large colonies, which helps them guard themselves and their chicks and eggs from predators like Herring Gulls, and Black-Backed Gulls. Colonies of Guillemots – Britain’s most common auk, will make a stand and point their sharp beaks out to deter attacking gulls.

Tucked away

Puffins take another approach to nesting. They nest in underground burrows, often old ones excavated by rabbits. This is another way to help protect themselves and their young from the gulls, but it does not always work. Black-backed gulls will wait outside active burrows, and if the puffin decides to leave the burrow at the wrong moment, it will become the gull’s meal. But don’t dislike the gulls, they have chicks to feed too.

On the edge

Many seabirds lay their eggs on a small amount of seaweed or other vegetation collected by the adults, or sometimes nothing but bare rock, on the very edges of cliff walls. But how do their eggs stay in one place? A breeze  or an accidental knock by one or the adults could send it rolling over the edge. Here’s how: seabirds have evolved to have conical shaped eggs- which means they simply roll in a small circle and then stop. They will not roll straight over the edge.

Taking the jump

As if life is not hard enough for young seabirds, when they reach a certain age they must fledge. This means making the terrifying fall from the cliff and into the water. There is no safe way to do this, it is just something they have to do. At the age of about three weeks, guillemot chicks prepare to fledge.  At this time, they are often called jumplings. Because that is precisely what they do. With encouragement and nudging from their parents, they leap off the edge, sometimes bouncing off protruding rocks on the way down. Some survive this fall, and some don’t. But they either have to face the fall or become easy prey for gulls. It’s a hard life being a young seabird.

Photos and words by Amy (nature__lover)

Earth Day dusk –
falling all around me
blackbird song

Amy Claire Rose

(@Nature__Lover)

We heard today that Amy won first prize in the 13-15 years age group and also the overall grand prize for the above haiku, her entry for the 2011 Kids Count for Earth Day international competition for children and young people. The contest was judged by world renowned tanka and haiku poet and artist, an’ya. Amy wins a year’s membership to the Haiku Society of America (HSA) and the winning poems will be published in the Fall issue of Sketchbook online journal.

Special thanks to Alan Summers (With Words) for publicising the competition on Twitter etc. Amy got her entry in ten minutes before the midnight deadline

while you are sleeping…

stars dim on the gate of dawn

ruby and gold

the honeysuckle stirs

with a blackbird’s song

For Amy, Congratulations!

from your proud mum xx

 You can read Amy’s haiku  and the other prize-winners’ excellent poems along with commentaries from an’ya here:

http://area17.blogspot.com/

Claire

Male Reed Bunting

Stunning male Ruff ( in summer plumage!)

and again...

pair of lovely Avocets

A little Redshank puffed up against the wind

Lapwing through the reeds

Grey heron

one of many fluffy canada goose goslings!

Common tern with fish

Three Little egrets AND a mute swan!

photos by Amy (nature__lover)

Animals adapt to their environment and take advantage of it, they have to -or they have no chance of survival. A blue tit in the countryside will have to rely entirely on its foraging skills to find insects and other natural foods, whereas a blue tit living in urban conditions will mainly feed on discarded scraps of bread or meat, seeds that people provide in feeders, and when the milkman was a common sight, they used to peck through the top to get to the cream at the tops of the bottles. In harsh winters- when food is scarce, blue tits have even been known to peck around windows, probably attracted to the linseed oil in the putty.

Foxes- the typical animal that springs to mind when someone says ‘urban wildlife’, take advantage of the food we discard. To us it may be rubbish, but to them it is a meal, and we can’t exactly blame them for taking it. (would you turn down a free all-you-can eat buffet?). If there are not many small mammals like rabbits or voles around, they will have to scavenge for something else- anything else- that will get them by. Wherever they are, animals will adapt to the environment around them, making changes in their lifestyle to suit their needs. In very urbanized areas, where there aren’t any mature, native trees with natural cavities to nest in, birds like blue , coal and great tits mainly nest in the nest boxes that we provide, and robins will even nest in peg-baskets or letter boxes!

Recent studies have even shown that birds that adapt well to urban areas (for example, tits, crows, wrens and nuthatches) have larger brains in relation to their body size than birds that don’t frequent urban areas- like yellowhammers. The intelligence of our city-dwelling birds is incredible. For example, Crows learn to place nuts with hard shells in  the road, wait for a car to run over it and crack it open, before swooping down and grabbing the nut. This suggests that larger brains make birds more adaptable to the changeable conditions of city-living.

Sadly, Humans and wildlife don’t seem to be able to live in close proximity together anymore, without colliding. Sometimes we forget that we ourselves are part of the natural world. Pigeons hung in nets fixed under bridges, hedgehogs tangled so badly in football-netting that they have swollen up, and countless rabbits, foxes, hedgehogs, and badgers run over by cars are all sorry sights that we see all too often today. I remember once seeing a blackbird with an entire carrier bag tangled around one leg.

The making of cities has harmed our wildlife, putting a strain on them to find new ways to live, so it is our duty to give something back! Putting up nest boxes, planting trees and flowers, providing food and water for birds and other animals, litter-picking to prevent animals becoming unnecessarily harmed, and digging ponds for amphibians to breed in and birds to drink and bathe in, will all help.

Articles etc for further information on the subject: 

‘adaptable urban birds have bigger brains ‘ http://tinyurl.com/3vxf7zu

‘red light-runners’ – intelligent crow behavior http://tinyurl.com/62kjon9

Photograph and article by Amy (nature__lover)

Bees are a vital part of our ecosystem. If our native bees became extinct, wildflower populations and in turn other insects and birds, would plummet and one-third of our diet would be lost. If all the pollinators disappeared overnight, so would 9.5% of the total value of global agriculture production used for food. Three species of bee have already became extinct and five are currently under threat.

The most obvious reason for why we need bees is pollination. Flying flower to flower, they pick up pollen specks on their wings and bodies, which are unknowingly carried and deposited all over the countryside and our gardens. Have you ever wondered how a pretty wildflower sprung up in the lawn? it was most likely because of a bee. Flowers are not brightly coloured to please the human eye, it is so bees and other pollinating insects will be drawn to them and reseed them somewhere else.

Bees, as well as helping the flowers themselves, help other mammals and birds by increasing the number of plants and flowers which other animals use as shelter , nesting material and food. Bees themselves are also food for Swallows, Bee-eaters , House martins, Frogs, Toads, other insects and Shrikes. Even Honey Buzzards will dig out bee nests to feed on the larva.

Of course, besides from all their good effects on the ecosystem,  bees provide us with some really useful products. Honey is not only good as a sweetener, it can be used as cough syrup, dressings for severe burns, and because of it’s antibiotic properties, it can also be used to treat ulcers, infections and allergies. They also provide us with beeswax which is used in hundreds of products we use everyday – probably without even thinking about it.

It is not easy to say why so many bee species are becoming threatened or endangered, because it is a mixture of things. Pesticides will play a part, in some studies it has been believed to damage bees brains, affecting how they look for food and communicate with others within their colony. A disease called Colony Collapse Disorder is one of the main factors that is causing the decline of Honey bees, though the cause for this phenomenon is unknown. The decline of some of the wildflowers that they gather nectar from is sure to play a part too.

Apart from the vital role they play in the natural world, we should want to help them solely because a countryside without the melodious hum of bees in the background is no countryside at all.

Photo by Ellie and article written by Amy (Nature__lover)

the ewe and her lambs

a meandering track

of bluebells

~

treading on tree roots

we walk an uphill path

starred with May blossom…

the green greener

for the blue

~

Summer’s Day

the braid of our lives…

as swallows weave

morning’s  seamless blue,

we renew our vows

~

to the ends

of the earth…

white butterfly

~

oak leaves

a swaying canopy

of light and shade,

your vows, then mine –

the pipes of an unknown bird

~

flurries of blossom…

opening and closing

the butterfly’s wings

~

Claire

1.5.2011

http://simplyhaiku.theartofhaiku.com/simply-haiku/claire-everett.html                                                                                                                                                                                                and three tanka:

http://simplyhaiku.theartofhaiku.com/simply-tanka.html

There is also information about the We Are All Japan project here:

http://wearealljapan.blogspot.com/

bullfinch pair by Amy Claire Rose - aged 13