Dragonflies, legless lizards, puffins and boar...
- 20 Jun 07, 04:34 PM
............ these are a few of my favourite things :-) and on the list for programmes that I'll be recording in early July -- fingers crossed. So let me know if there's anything that you particularly want me to find out about them.
After a rather ill-fated attempt to set up a Scottish recording trip (cf the Scottish play!), I'm now getting excited about the possibility of wild boar, dragonflies, puffins and slow-worms as subjects for the September run of the Living World.
Wild boar have escaped/been released over several years now and there's been plenty of controversy about whether they should be "controlled" or not. But here is a chance to find out about the animals themselves, and, if we're lucky, to see them and their piglets/hoglets
dragonflies -- absolutely stunning animals and July is the best time to see them (if it doesn't pour with rain)
slow-worms -- those wonderful legless lizards which I hope we will be encountering on some Worcestershire allotments
and puffins which a team from Oxford are going to be tagging with some clever devices that will reveal where they head to once they leave their breeding burrows on the island of Skomer.
Tell me if you've got any burning questions about any of these creatures and I'll see if we can find out the answers.
Don't forget the current run of the Living World which is going out on Sunday mornings at 0635 (ouch!) Or that you can listen to at a more civilised time of day via the usual Radio 4 listen again facilities.
Wild and windy here today after last night's spiralling storms. Will the weather ever settle down again?
Happy solstice
Grant
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Question for Bill Oddie & co. HOw can I find out what happened to sparrows in London? I am curious as I live in Paris at present and they are everywhere here. thanks Sandi
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Sandi -- you could have a look at the Springwatch website for things relating to Bill Oddie and co. But I'm not sure that they were doing much on sparrows this year. I would check out the British Trust for Ornithology website or the RSPB.
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Question. When you pick up a Slow-worm why does it crap on your hand?
T:-)
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I've hardly seen any dragonflies this year, is this because its been raining a lot or have I just been unlucky?
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Tom: since your question remains unanswered, perhaps I can comment?
'Crapping' by slow worms when they are caught is a defence mechanism designed to encourage the 'predator' to let go! Grass snakes do the same trick, only it is wet in texture and very smelly to boot in their case!
Alex: yes, dragonflies need warmth for sure and you won't see them unless the sun is out. Down at my local lakes near Derby today (Sunday), with the sun shining, there were several black tailed skimmers, a brown hawker and a single emperor dragonfly, plus many damselflies of two species, so some, at least, have survived the deluge.
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This week I saw many Damsel flies by the River Frome near Eastington, but I only saw a couple of Dragon flies.
These sightings were in bright sunlight next to a badly flooded field after the recent flooding in this part of Gloucestershire.
One of my Damsel fly photos was shown by Richard Angwin on Points West Weather
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Grant
Perhaps it has something to do with the proliferation of mobile phone masts.
The reason I think this is I had a small transciever on my roof, using a similar frequency to mobile phones.
We never had any small birds in the garden. I tried putting bird seed and bread out, but nothing. Doves and magpies would eat the bread but only on the side facing away from the transmitter.
When we brought our new Baby home from Hospital, he developed a rash on his face, neck, hands.
I then started wondering about the mast on my roof.
I put loads of bread and bird feed in my garden in front of the mast. No Birds came after 2 hours
I switched the mast off.. Within an hour the bread had been eaten and the bag of bird seed had been shredded by doves and magpies.
I had a meeting with an O2 representative. The output of each transmitter panel on a mobile mast is around 120w.
You can defrost a chicken in 10 minutes in a 350w microwave
What can a 120w mast do to a sparrow egg.. Am pretty sure, over a few days, it would be cooked.
Tests on animals in the Stewart report also detailed infertility in animals, birth defects and DNA changes as a result of exposure to Mobile Masts.
Perhaps the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ could do some tests for us!
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Re why people don't like dragonflies: I haven't seen any for donkeys' years, but as a child, 60 years ago, I was set upon by dozens of them on a hot. sunny field and fled in pursued panic. This led to my deep appreciation, some 30 years later, of a poem by the Austrian Christian Morgenstern called
'Philanthropisch'. This is my own translation of the German original:
On a meadow, a nervous person
Would be better off if it were away;
So to see things would not worsen
(Mostly at least)he could live that way.
No sooner has he laid down on the grasses
But appear the ant, the grasshopper, midge and worm.
The millipede appears and the earwig passes
And the bumble bee hums out to the storm.
A nervous person upon a meadow
Would do better, then, to stand, not stay,
And to go, therefore, were also better,
To paradise elsewhere (e.g. away).
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Robinson
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