A wet and very windy start to October certainly blew the cobwebs away as ex-hurricane Humberto became the first named storm of the season - dubbed "Amy" by the Met Office. Amy brought a brief period of torrential rain to most of the UK and Ireland, but a much longer period of very strong winds. Widely across the UK we saw gusts of 80 kph (50 mph), while parts of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and northern England, across which the low-pressure system tracked, recorded damaging wind speeds that included one 167 kph (104 mph) gust. "Benjamin" followed, and overall October was an unsettled month, with temperatures around or slightly above average, albeit with a brief cold snap towards the end as "Benjamin" exited and pulled in some cold air from the Norwegian Sea for a day or two.
Website news
Following a request from a reader, a new Speed Read has gone live covering the natural history of the Snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus). A new section of the water deer article also went live last month covering the conservation efforts directed at this species.
News and discoveries
Tipping point. A new collaborative report by 160 scientists and researchers across the globe was published last month and it highlights that, as global temperatures continue to rise in the face of widespread apathy, we're at, or possibly even nudging over, a global tipping point. The aptly-named Global Tipping Points Report 2025 describes how marine heatwaves are responsible for significant diebacks in many warm-water coral reefs and that the extensive reefs as we know them will almost certainly be lost. This is despite nearly a billion people and one-quarter of all marine life depending on them. The report also highlights the impact of climate change and deforestation on the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and how we're seeing changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the main ocean current system in the Atlantic, which will ultimately shift air masses and rainfall, significantly impacting agriculture across Europe, Africa, and India.
Bivalve billets. In a first-of-its-kind marine conservation project, scientists and engineers from the Zoological Society of London and Groundwork North East and Cumbria have deployed 20 specialised "oyster reef cubes" along the north-east coast. Part of an innovative project to help restore marine life around Britain, these textured concrete-like blocks are home to 4,000 native European oysters and will also serve as artificial reefs to help support and boost local fish communities. Each oyster can filter about 200 litres of water (about a bath full) every day, which will help improve coastal water quality and restore a vital ecological service that overharvesting, pollution, habitat loss, and disease has seen decline by 95% since the 1800s.
Discommoding deer. Sika deer, first introduced to Ireland by Lord Powerscourt in 1860, have spread widely across the country and are increasingly in conflict with wildlife groups, landowners, and traffic authorities, being blamed for environmental and safety issues. The National Parks and Wildlife Service continues to conduct targeted culls in places like Killarney National Park to reduce deer densities, and these efforts have led to a 13% decline in sika numbers in cull areas between 2018 and 2021. Nonetheless, conservationists, including the group ReWild Wicklow, warn that sika deer remain dominant in many areas; their recent camera trapping study showing 72% of all recorded wild mammal sightings in a Wicklow forest were sika deer, underscoring the urgency of a comprehensive national management plan. The European Commission has announced that it has now included sika deer on its Union of Concern list, designating it as an invasive species, a move supported by Irish officials concerned about the threat to native red deer and oak forests.
Shrew-eating spider. Originally described to science in 1875 based on a specimen from the Madeira, the noble false widow spider Steatoda nobilis made its first appearance in England only a couple of years later, when a female was caught in Torquay in 1879 (possibly earlier, the description is unclear), presumably having arrived in a crate of bananas from the Canary Islands. The population had become established by the mid-1980s, and the species is now ubiquitous across south-east England. Despite media headlines in recent years, these spiders pose little threat to us and, like most spiders, focus their attention on invertebrate prey. There have been occasional reports of these arachnids catching vertebrates, including lizards, and a recent video shows one individual stepping up its game. In a relatively recent paper to Ecosphere, Michel Dugon and colleagues described a pygmy shrew (Sorex minutus) entangled in a Steatoda web constructed on the outside of a first-floor bedroom window in Chichester, West Sussex, during August 2022. The mature female spider paralyzed the unfortunate shrew, hoisted it up into the top of the web and wrapped it in silk. The spider released the shrew after three days, at which point only fur, bones, and skin remained. This record represents the eighth species of vertebrate and the second species of mammal known to fall prey to Steatoda species, the other mammal being a pipistrelle bat pup that got caught in a web in Shropshire during July 2021.
For a round-up of Britain's seasonal wildlife highlights for late autumn, check out my Wildlife Watching - November blog. November is also normally the close of the pannage season, also known as the Common of Mast, where pigs are turned out onto the New Forest to eat the acorns. This year the season has been extended to January, however, owing to the glut of acorns. Learn more about this ancient tradition.