SEA_GOING OTTERS and TAME LIZARDS

 

SEA-GOING OTTERS & TAME LIZARDS

SEA-GOING OTTERS

Seeing plenty of Otter signs but very rarely a live one at night in our rivers and streams in Cornwall, we were thrilled to see them in the Outer Hebrides some years ago, swimming and fishing among the weedy rocks on the shore during the daytime.

Never in her wildest dreams did Kim think she’d ever see them on the exposed coast on her doorstep in NW Wales.

 

Kim's stretch of NW Wales coast, looking across to Bardsey.

(a calm day, although Bardsey Sound is notorious for its treacherously rapid currents) 

They are quite frequent inland on Pen Llyn, even raiding the fish in garden ponds. They have been seen occasionally as road kill locally and sightings are made where the little River Daron flows into the sea at the nearby village of Aberdaron.

One winter four or five years ago, Kim was sitting on the grass above the sloping slabs of the low cliff looking for the Purple Sandpipers which can be seen along that stretch of coast. 

One of the spraint sites on that stretch of the coast.

 

 Smelling a fishy smell she looked around and there was otter spraint on the grass beside her. Since then she’s found spraint at various places along the headland, with well-worn tracks trodden in the fescue grass and possibly a holt in an earthy hollow among the rocks twenty or thirty feet above the sea.

Possible holt (nest or resting place) among the rocks to the left of the uppermost patch of grass.

 Seeing fresh spraint quite frequently Kim felt certain she would eventually see the Otter itself : one quiet evening last January she was sitting just above the cliff, painting the dusk sky, when she caught sight of an Otter paddling close in, heading towards the rocks below. It had a small fish in its mouth. It swam on the surface with its head up and tail arched out of the water, and dived repeatedly, coming in closer until it disappeared behind the rocks. Presumably it hauled out but there was no sign when she crept along the cliff.

Looking at the contents of the spraint .

 

Spraint is the otter dropping combined with a sweet-smelling mucus which acts as a territorial marker. Note the fragments of fish bones.

 

She has found fish bones, scales and vertebrae , tiny crabs and shells including the small Blue-line Limpets which live on the blades of big low-water Laminaria  Oar-weed, and also pieces of the pharyngeal teeth of Wrasse. These are grinding tools in the throat of this fish. The shells and crabs were probably eaten by the Wrasse and the fish in its turn, eaten by the Otter.

Bones found in an otter spraint: left hand corner, several fish vertebrae. Centre, a limpet about 1cm across. Upper right, two fragments of Wrasse pharyngeal teeth from the fish's throat, used for grinding up prey. Bottom right, more fish bones.

 

A small fragment of polystyrene was in one spraint too. Yet another reminder, if such is needed, that waste plastic is entering the food chain.

 

THE LIZARDS’ TALE

Sitting in a warm little sun-trap in their garden  in a sheltered dip in the ground behind the sea-going otter cliffs, Kim and her husband have become accustomed to seeing a very unafraid  lizard  family basking or feeding on the stone wall alongside their bench.

 

The Lizards' usual basking wall.

 

I quote from Kim’s notes:

‘She was there last year and re-appeared this year obviously ‘great with child’.

 

 

Pregnant female, 13th June'20.

 

Early in July she disappeared for a couple of days and  then reappeared, and on the same wall we saw up to five inch- long babies. They had copper heads, black bodies and tails. Almost immediately one of these infants had lost half of his tail. Since then we have been seeing Mrs with her babies draped over her at times. Sometimes on her own, and also babies on their own and in various combinations with parents. They all bask and hunt along the drystone wall, and on a south-facing turf bank. To get to this they have to cross a grass path and make their way through dense herbage.

One of the babies in August after a skin change.

  

One day the stump-tailed baby had flakes of skin sloughing off. He must have rubbed this off on stones, as a couple of minutes after scurrying off he reappeared and most of this had gone. His new scales along his body were then brighter, with pale rust spotting on  a greeny black ground. His siblings had already shed their first skin.

At the same time there were two adult males. One of these has a large part of tail missing, out of which end protrudes a quarter of an inch of scaleless black new tail. He is greener, with a narrower body and rich yellow beneath. He basks along the same wall and turf bank. The other even greener male hasn’t been seen since June.

Male with stumpy tail re-growing. August.

  

One day the red ants living on the wall erupted in nuptial flight. Mrs Lizard grabbed and ate nine as we watched. She’d pounce and scuttle off to bash and manage the ant wings in a slightly less open site then prowl back for more.

She also grabbed and ate a Middle-barred Minor moth which I had put out on an egg box on ‘her’ anthill after opening up the moth trap. Later she investigated the egg box again but narrowly missed a Dark Arches which flew in alarm to safety!

They are all accustomed to us. We have to watch our feet as the babies in particular come down onto the paving. Dare not mow the grass.....’

During a brief visit in late September we delighted in watching them still there. The youngsters popped in and out of the holes bored by Teredo Worms in a driftwood log on top of the wall.

One of the youngsters emerging from a Teredo Worm hole in driftwood log. Late Sep'20.

 Thanks to daughter Kim for her observations and some of the photos.

Follow her on Instagram for some of her sketchbook drawings: (including currently the Dotterel on 'her' stretch of coast earlier in Sep.)

kim.atkinson257

Other links you may like to see:

https://northcornwallnaturalist.blogspot.com 

https://downgatebatman.blogspot.com 

 

 

Goodbye Summer

Goodbye Summer

Goodbye Summer : Do svidanya Leto, the only words I now remember from a short course in Russian I took about forty years ago.

Do svidanya. It has a smooth, honey-like sound, redolent of the buzz of bees, harvest time, but also the sadness of a passing season.

The warm late spring this year, followed by good rains and then warmth again, brought on a tremendous growth of plants. The combination of various factors over the past twelve months has resulted in bumper crops of fruit and nuts. Not everywhere, and not every sort, but many trees and shrubs are laden.

GONE...Hazel nuts

The squirrels get to the nuts before they are ripe!

NOW...

No wonder the birds have deserted our gardens after rearing their young. They are off blackberrying!

There are a lot of acorns this year.

Old Man's Beard, the fluffy seeds of Clematis.

Rowan berries are very popular with Blackbirds and the Thrushes.

Guelder Rose. The shiny berries are very attractive but don't last long.

Dog Rose.  

When I was a kid in the war we were encouraged to pick rose hips for vitamin-C-rich syrup as a supplement to the concentrated orange juice issued free to pre-school children. We were paid 6d (=15p) a pound when we took them to the Town Hall. That was useful money in those days but it took an awful lot of rose hips to make a pound weight! The boys at school had a more popular use for them. The seeds within the hips were packed in fine hairs: very effective itching powder when the boys delighted in shoving the seeds  down the girls’ backs, so there were a few days of mayhem , with much hilarity and squealing , in the playground in the autumn term.

 

Hips of wild Dog Rose.

Beech. 

Although walking under big beech trees is very crunchy now, that’s because we’re walking on last year’s huge crop of old beech seed cases and dead leaves. We haven’t seen anything in the way of seed this year, though it’s perhaps a bit early yet.

 

Beech 'mast' or seed.

 

Birch catkins explode in a blizzard of tiny seeds now.

 

Sloes make a good Christmas tipple when infused in gin for a twelvemonth.

TO COME....

Sweet Chestnuts

In a good year we get a good crop from this Roman-introduced Mediterranean tree but it's a laborious task to get the edible nut from all its wrappings.

The prickly cases of Sweet Chestnut are their first line of defence.

Redwings will gorge in Yew berries when they arrive from Scandinavia soon.

Ivy berries, last to ripen, provide bird food in late winter.

Bugs

The name Bugs loosely describes all sorts of small creatures, an Americanism that has crossed the Atlantic and is now even infantilized as ‘Mini Beasts’.

True bugs are insects, with external hard chitinous skeletons, a head, thorax (to which their six legs and wings if present, are attached, and then an abdomen.

They are not in the same group as Beetles. Unlike most insects which have a metamorphosis from egg to larva, to pupa or chrysalis and then to adult, Bugs only have a partial metamorphosis, going from egg to nymph or juvenile stage with 4 or 5 instars or changes of skin as they grow, to then becoming fully adult. Some suck the juices from animals, others from plants.

Bug or Bed Bug still has unpleasant associations. I remember my mother pursing her lips and linking them with poor and insanitary households. A worse visitation even than human fleas.

As recently as 1980 I was in hospital  (now demolished) in Plymouth when the word ‘Bug!’ went round and our beds were shuffled while a man sprayed all the nooks and crannies(not ours , but the ward and corridors) with heaven-knows what.

Shield Bugs

Shield Bugs , a separate group within the family of Bugs, are noticeable this time of the year. I had the unpleasant experience when picking blackberries and eating them as I picked, and without noticing, a Shield Bug was on one . I immediately had a frightful bitter taste in my mouth as it must have exuded some nasty substance in its alarm. That is perhaps what also gives them their alternative name of ‘Stink Bug’.

Their upper wings which like beetles are the strengthened wing covers, are shield-shaped with the end furthest from the body transparent and un-strengthened; hence their name.

Shield Bugs feed throughout their lives on the sap and juices of plants and fruit.

 

Green Shield Bug adult.

Green Shield Bug nymph.

Sloe (or Hairy,)Shield Bug (Picture thanks to Linda Scott)

LOOKING FOR FRITILLARY WEBS

Looking for Marsh Fritillary Webs 

Fritillary butterflies have the same allure as orchids in the plant world. They are distinctive, rather local to distinctly rare, and not very easy to identify unless you have a good view. It is said that they perhaps get their name because their variety of chestnut and black chequer markings are, with a bit of poetic licence, reminiscent of the chequer markings of the Fritillary flower, but I think it’s more likely that both flower and butterfly have the same name because fritillus is Latin for chequered.

Fritillary, very rare in Britain now, but often grown in gardens.

 There are eight resident fritillary butterfly species in the UK, but over 40 in Europe, posing an even greater challenge if you want to name them. Like so much else in the natural world, they are becoming scarcer. Probably the most widespread in the SW is one of the biggest, the Silver-washed Fritillary.

 

Silver-washed Fritillary

 

 It can be seen in the later part of summer mainly in woodland clearings with a characteristic lilting flight mostly higher up in the foliage. 

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

This species can be found in small colonies in places in the UK but is declining. 

Heath Fritillary  

One of our rarest butterflies, it occurs in a handful of sites in Southern Britain, saved from extinction by careful conservation. It is common and widespread in many parts of Europe.

 

Heath Fritillary

 

Marsh Fritillary

 

 

Marsh Fritillary

 

 Unlike the Heath, this Fritillary is rare and endangered in both Britain and Europe. It was this last species that took a small group of us up onto the marshy eastern edge of Bodmin Moor one sunny September afternoon.

 

Looking for Marsh Fritillary caterpillar webs, Bodmin Moor

 We were looking for the webs made by the young caterpillars of the Marsh Fritillary. They make their sheltering web low down in their foodplant, Devils bit Scabious.

 

 

Devil's-bit Scabious and late- summer flowering Western Gorse.

 

Marsh Fritillary caterpillar web.

  

 They over-winter in this little tent. The marsh had been lightly grazed by bullocks quite recently but there was still a good mix of vegetation of various heights in this sheltered and relatively warm corner of the edge of Bodmin Moor. Among the scatter of golden-flowering Western Gorse, Willow and Birch scrub there are rushes and grasses, with the silky white heads of Cottongrass here and there. Devil’s Bit Scabious was still in flower and there were rags of old Marsh Thistles. Lower down the slope were a lot of golden seed spikes of Bog Asphodel, old seed spikes of the earlier-flowering Heath Spotted and Marsh Orchids and further still, abundant patches of ling and of bright green bog moss (sphagnum) and droplet-spangled Sundew.

 

Ling.(Calluna vulgaris)

 

Sundew(Drosera rotundifolia) an insectivorous plant.

  

On this year's search we were out of luck. But the abundant Silver Y moths, coloured butterflies and handsome spiders waiting for a passing fly to trigger their trip wires slung across the gaps between rush stems, with the benign sun warm on our backs, was pleasure enough. 

Two or three years ago, following June sightings of several of the adults, we did indeed find several webs with groups of young caterpillars in their webs. As we were making our way slowly back to the moor gate Tony found another, bigger web with at least a dozen, still small, caterpillars visible and traces of the successive web building below the one in current occupation. 

 

 

 Some were eating the skeletonised remains of a Scabious leaf beside their web. We were told they need to feed up more yet and have another skin change before they are robust enough to hibernate over winter. Next spring they will feed again, undergoing another couple of skin changes before dispersing, pupating and emerging  as adults in June/July to repeat the cycle.