Although you might not realise it from the weather, it’s late Spring, almost Summer. That makes it time for all of the new life that is entering our world to make itself seen. It’s also that time when parent creatures are driven frantic by the need to deliver food to growing families. The parents of this pair of little grebe chicks were in constant motion, finding insects and even small fish to feed to their pair. The effort involved …
Category: reproduction
Emily and the Aigrettes sounds like the name of a pub-level rock group, but actually it’s the foundation of one of the most effective conservation organisation in the world. And it all started with a bird I was watching slowly stalk and catch a fish on a reed-edged pond recently. Except that this wasn’t your normal grey heron; this was one of Britain’s growing army of white herons. If you haven’t seen one already, you will soon, as white herons …
This week I watched one of Britain’s unsung superheroes, a miniature marvel: the two-coloured mason bee. A sunny weekend in May is the best time to see these bees. But you will have to look closely, as mason bees are tiny things, smaller than your little fingernail, topping out at a fraction over a centimetre from nose to tail. The two-coloured mason bee is, as its name subtly implies, two-coloured, with a black head and thorax (front end) and a …
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