LATEST NEWS

Of course, while picture postcard scenes look pretty (and as an amateur photographer, I certainly enjoy seeing them) and offer some the opportunity to have fun -- the kids riding down hillsides on sledges (even on estate agent signs in my local park) and guys snowboarding in Cumbria, for example -- it can represent a tough time for our wildlife.   This weekend, the RSPB launched a campaign to alert people to the plight of our birds in these freezing temperatures.   On their website, the RSPB's director of conservation Dr Mark Avery (an apt surname if ever there was one!) said:

"The extremely hard winter spanning 1962 and 1963 was arguably the single event that had the greatest impact on Britain’s wildlife within living memory. With the icy weather predicted to last at least another week, this winter could be the single greatest wildlife killer of the new millennium."

It's not just a case of finding food and keeping warm; icy ponds can also be hazardous.   Indeed, the RSPB report having received more than 100 calls from the public reporting reporting ducks and swans stuck in the ice of ponds and lakes, since Wednesday (7th January).   On Thursday (8th) morning, construction workers from a local building site brought their mechanical digger to the aid of RSPB officers trying to the rescue of a group of swans stuck in the ice of a lake in Wallasey, Merseyside.   One bird died, but the rest were freed.   The RSPB and other wildlife charities have been calling for householders to put out food for birds and other animals to help them through the harsh winter.   I think the first inclination of just how much harsher this winter has been than previous ones I have seen here in Southampton came today when I spotted a flock of Redwings (Turdus iliacus) and Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) descending into the garden to feed on the Cotoneaster bushes.   These birds, both members of the thrush family, Turdidae -- Turdus is Latin for 'thrush' -- along with blackbirds (Turdus merula) and robins (Erithacus rubecula), are very susceptible to cold winters and are seldom seen in gardens, only coming into larger gardens to feed when conditions are particularly harsh.   Indeed, in just over four years of living here, I have never seen or heard either in the garden.

Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris), pilaris comes from the Latin pilus, meaning 'hair' or 'head' after its grey head.	The Redwing (Turdus iliacus), the Latin name iliacus comes from the Latin ile, meaning 'flank', after its red side.

Winter is also an important time for some of our mammals and those that aren't hibernating are busy looking for food or members of the opposite sex.   The breeding season for foxes (Vulpes vulpes) runs from December into early February and on cold, clear nights, their eerie contact and mating calls can carry for miles.   The snow is also very helpful for telling you what's been out and about during the hours of darkness and, with the correct conditions, it's possible to track a fox's movement and perhaps even discover a kill.   Foxes are active, even in snowy weather, and putting out food for your local foxes can be a good way to get a decent view of what can be remarkably elusive creatures.   Pamela Archer sent me some great shots of some foxes that she's been watching recently in her garden in the West Midlands; one of the photos is below - thanks very much Pamela!

Fox tracks in the snow can reveal the fascinating nocturnal movements of these winter-breeding mammals.	Foxes aren't put off by the snow and during harsh conditions can be tempted to linger in gardens with the addition of food.

The lack of vegetation and foliage can make it easier to spot mammals such as squirrels, which contrary to popular misconception do not hibernate.   Indeed, squirrels can be very active at this time of year, searching out the nuts, seeds and fruit that they cached during the summer and autumn months.   The Grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) in my garden are out and about, braving the snow and ice.   I managed to get a shot of the one below this morning.

Some of our mammalian fauna will either be in hibernation, or in preparation for it.   There are three British mammals than hibernate, bats (Chiroptera), dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius) and hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) - these species are seldom seen during the winter, although they may wake periodically, especially if the weather gets seriously cold.   With the latter of these in mind, this is the time when hedgehogs are perhaps most in need of a little human kindness.   Under most conditions, hoglets born during the summer months will have sufficient time to put on weight in time to undergo hibernation.   However, those born during the autumn will almost certainly not be able to build up the necessary reserves of fat to see them through the winter - these are the "autumn orphans" and "autumn juveniles" (the latter being fully weaned but underweight and the former having had their parental care abruptly terminated before being fully weaned).   Most veterinary charities suggest that a hedgehog should be at lest 600g (1 lb. 5 oz.) by the onset of hibernation and for this, many will need some help.   On that note, hedgehog carer Natasha Harper has revised and updated the Caring for Hedgehogs article.   Moreover, I appreciate that not everyone has a constant connection to the Internet or wants to have to continually refer to a website for their advice.   Given that I also know websites often don't print as well as we might like, I have taken the step of formatting the care article into a PDF, which can be downloaded from the hedgehog care page for printing or reference offline.   I'd love your feedback on this - do you think it's a good idea, could it be improved at all?   Let me know.   Additionally, if you've got a growing collection of garden waste sitting on what was your veggie patch waiting for a bonfire, PLEASE CHECK THE BONFIRE FOR HEDGEHOGS BEFORE YOU LIGHT IT.   Bonfire stacks offer a tempting hibernaculum for hedgehogs and every year wildlife charities see hedgehogs brought in suffering from severe burns when the bonfire was lit while they were curled up inside.

Website-wise, I am still working on the Red deer article, which is growing quite rapidly now.   Despite some busy weekends ahead, I am still hoping to get it online in early 2010.   As always, I love hearing from readers; hearing their stories, seeing their wildlife photos and getting their questions.   Furthermore, should you have any queries or comments regarding the information on the site, please feel free to drop me a note (note some questions are answered on the FAQ).   Photos can be e-mailed to a dedicated e-mail address - please keep them coming and don't forget to check out my Photos Needed page, which has now been updated to include details of photographs and information that I'm looking for.   I'm also interested in hearing any reports of unusual behaviour in any of the animals featured here, or interactions between humans and wildlife.

********************************************************************
Okay, for those of you that are new to the site, let's take it from the top!

Hello and welcome to my website.   Actually, I feel something of a fraud calling it "my" website - although I created the bulk of the written content, so many people helped out (from sending in photos to proof-reading material or letting me crawl around in their garden at night with a torch!) that it is very much a combined effort!   At any rate, I'm an enthusiastic amateur naturalist, fortunate enough to live a stone's throw from the New Forest in Hampshire.   I have spent much of my time (both at and away from University) watching my local wildlife - whether it be in my backgarden or out in the fields and woods.   “All very interesting…” I hear you ask, “…but why create a website?”   Well, King George IV was once quoted as saying: “The wildlife of today is not ours to dispose of as we please. We have it in trust, and must account for it to those who come after.”   While this perhaps gives the misleading impression that we, in some way own wildlife, humans have arguably had the most profound impact on both the environment and its inhabitants of any single species since our settlements began to appear on the landscape (perhaps eight million years BC).   An increase in brain cavity from the roughly 500 cubic centimetres of Australopithecus (the oldest known hominids) to the modern Homo sapiens’ brain volume of 1,400 cc in only about three million years (see Richard Dawkins “The Blind Watchmaker”) has helped us manipulate the global environment in a way unlike any other species before us.

“Erm…what, exactly, does this have to do with you creating a website?”   I’m getting to that!   There are now few places on the planet that do not show some signs of human activity, either obviously (i.e. building, mining, felling etc.) or less obtrusively (i.e. pesticides and other chemicals) and, with the rapid ‘urban sprawl’, urban green spaces -- in the form of commons, parks and gardens -- are becoming a final refuge for many (particularly bird) species.   Ergo, foxes, hedgehogs and even deer and badgers are becoming common garden visitors in many parts of the UK (and further afield).   I should mention that I am not implying that these animals have necessarily ‘moved into towns/cities’, rather that our towns and cities have moved into their ranges and the animals have simply adapted to their new surroundings.   Nonetheless, a fox or badger visiting your garden can be a spectacular experience – I still get a little breathless with excitement when I see most wild animal species; even those that I see commonly (like many of our garden birds and squirrels) still fascinate me and I never tire of watching their activities.   However, I find that nature watching is far more interesting if you know a little about that at which you’re staring.   For me specifically, seeing an animal fills my head with questions.   Where does it go the rest of the time?   Does it live nearby?   What does it find to eat around here?   How old is it?   Is it male or female?   Does it have young somewhere?   Moreover, these simple questions (note that these simple questions may have deceptively complex answers) lead to more complex questions – for example: If it’s a male how large is his range?   Does he have a mate somewhere?   If he has a mate, is she his stable partner?   So, you can see how the sighting of a single fox tripping the light-fantastic across my lawn leads to an avalanche of questions.

These questions are good not only for us -- because they help satisfy our (well, my at least) naturally inquisitive nature -- but also for the animals we’re watching.   Questions hopefully bring answers, which bring knowledge.   Knowledge, as they say, is power and with it we are better able to understand our subjects.   If we understand them, we are better able to fulfil King George’s doctrine.   Indeed, the last thing that American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman wrote on his chalkboard before he died was: “What I cannot create, I do not understand”.   With a single substitution, we can sum-up nicely a principle problem in conservation biology: What I cannot protect, I do not understand.   In other words, we cannot hope to provide effective protection for a species/ecosystem that we do not understand.   Obviously there are some exceptions to this, after all knowing the intricate details of a tiger’s life is of little use if you have no money or manpower to police their habitat.   Still, with backgardens representing crucial oases for a number of species, householders have more to contribute to the understanding of our wildlife today than ever – this seems especially true of hedgehogs.

So, Wildlife Online (WLOL) is my small contribution to the education of our species to some of those with which we share our towns and countryside.   “Fine, thanks for clearing that up!   However, why bother when anyone can walk to their bookcase/local library and read up on the species in more detail than you could hope to cover on this site?”   Well, it is certainly true that I could not hope to cover everything that is known about the species on here and also that people can glean much more information by immersing themselves in a decent book on the subject.   Moreover, there are a ton of wildlife websites out there giving details on the life history of the species featured here.   Uh Huh!   Not difficult to see why you flunked out of ‘Salesman School’!   Of greatest importance is that I hate the idea of ‘re-inventing the wheel’ -- if something already exists and does the job, why emulate it? -- which is why I don’t believe that there are any sites out there quite like this one.   Upon beginning my research, it became obvious that much of the information regarding the natural history and behaviour of the wild animals we may see during our daily lives is disseminated across a range of books, electronic media and scientific texts.   Many of the most fascinating discoveries lie in the, sometimes daunting, ‘double-barrel’ wording of the scientific literature.   Consequently, the purpose of WLOL is to provide a reasonably detailed and accessible overview of species natural history, using information from books, the media, scientific journals and the observations of myself and other naturalists.   Where similar published works already exist (e.g. any of the T & AD Poyser natural history texts), WLOL’s aim is to bring the topic up-to-date.

Furthermore, it seems that many people are largely unaware and/or uninformed of the wildlife that surrounds them – I hope this site will provide a useful and educational resource for people to learn about these animals.   I guess the final reason to do it is simply that I want to.   I love learning, I love reading and I love watching wildlife.   I know that I get a kick out of writing the articles and I hope that some of you will get a kick out of reading them.

Alright, but that doesn’t really explain the presence of sharks on the site.  I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had a shark in my garden since the Carboniferous!   Well, the answer is simple – sharks are perhaps the coolest critters on the planet today.   They have so many features that hold them physiologically, biologically, ecologically and behaviourally distinct from other ‘fish’ it is breathtaking.   The particular slant of the elasmobranch (i.e. shark & ray) bit of this site relates to UK species.   I have provided a very basic overview of elasmobranch natural history, but -- as mentioned previously -- as I have no desire to ‘re-create the wheel’ I have opted not to go into any great depth, because my friend and elasmobranch biologist, R. Aidan Martin (who sadly passed away in February 2007) has already done it.

For good reason I have decided to get permission from artists and photographers before using their work on this site – in other words, I didn't swipe the images from books or the Internet.   In certain instances I have been unable to obtain photographs or professional artwork for aspects that I feel would enhance my site – as such I have done my best to draw the scenes.   I am certainly no artist, and make little apology for their calibre; my futile attempts at art are designed merely to provide a 'general idea'.

As a final note, I want to make a quick reference to the quality of the material on the site.   The great French philosopher and mathematician, Rene Descartes, once said: "If you would be a real seeker of truth, you first must be willing to doubt as far as possible all things."   This is very sage advice, especially when it comes to believing what you read on the Internet.   Most Internet sites have no form of peer-review (i.e. nobody with experience of the topic checks the site for accuracy); consequently pretty much anyone can have their own little corner of cyberspace and information can make it onto websites that is either misguided, or downright false!   When creating material for this site I take every care to ensure that the information I present is accurate.   Invariably errors will creep in; typos are almost inevitable (although each article goes through several levels of proof reading before it appears online) and research is always underway on the animals featured here, so the data can go out of date almost overnight.   However, each page has regular (ish!) reviews, during which I update the information, adding details of newly-published research and taking out that which is now thought highly unlikely.   You can see most of the books I have used in the preparation of this site on the Recommended Reading page and I have provided links to some of the most interesting sites I came across during my research – these can be found under the appropriate sub-heading on the Links page.   I should point out that I have not listed all the scientific literature that I have used in the making of these pages as I don't feel this is really necessary.   However, I'm more than happy to supply references to the original reference material upon request.

Anyway, I digress....   I hope you enjoy looking around the site and I hope equally that you get something worthwhile out of it.   Any comments, suggestions or (constructive) criticisms are welcome via e-mail - appropriate addresses can be found on the Contact page.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DISCLAIMER: All the photographs and artwork on this site were either created by myself or donated by readers.   All images remain propriety of their authors and, if you wish to use any of the pictures, consent must be granted by the appropriate person - requests can be directed via myself or see FAQ.   For more details on the content of this site, please see the full WLOL Disclaimer.