A new species for the mill?

Today on my usual survey I came across a body. A body of a shrew. It is not uncommon to find dead shrews, they live fast and short lives. They have to eat almost constantly to maintain their high metabolism. Shrews also taste horrible. They actually have poisonous teeth and many predators find the taste of the flesh nasty and so many that get caught are just left.

This particular shrew caught my eye though, it was considerably larger than any other shrew I had seen and was differently coloured. Rather than the gentle gradation of brown to white the body seemed to be dark, almost black above and white below.

The image below shows the corpse. What out, the body is a little mangled.

The 50p coin shows that the shrew was approximately 70-80mm long.

I did a little research using an excellent site - Wildlife Kates blog to confirm that this could be a Water Shrew Neomys fodiens.

This is the first record I have made of this species at the Saxon Mill. I have seen Common Shrews with some regularity and even had one run into my shoe but this was the first evidence of this water specialist.

This takes the mammal count for the Saxon Mill up to 14.

Badger
Fox
Muntjac
Stoat
Weasel
Polecat
Rabbit
Grey Squirrel
Bank Vole
Field Vole
Wood Mouse
Mink
Brown Rat
Common Shrew
Water Shrew

Badger Behaviour

One of the best things of about collecting camera trap data is gathering some of the pieces of behaviour and inter-species interactions. This week saw an interestingly high activity of Badgers. This peaked  on Tuesday with up to three individuals moving up and down the hedge line through the night.

Just after 9 pm, the camera detected a Fox. He seems in good condition and still with black paws and ear tips. I like to (very unscientifically) think it is the cub born near the site two years ago. Something is making the Fox wary but he relaxed.

Two minutes later a large badger comes ambling past and encounters the fox, just out of shot.

Having chased the Fox off the Badger returns to its foraging.

Foxes and Badgers are not natural enemies, their diets do overlap and I have seen them coexist as well although in all cases it is the badger that instigates any aggressive behaviour.

Environment Secretary Response.

As you may recall I wrote a letter to our new Environment Secretary  well after some weeks I have got a reply.

I do not fault them for taking time because it was the summer and parliament was suspended but the response didn't exactly fill me with confidence. As you can see from the picture below, it is polite and encouraging but does not very inspiring, given the current extension of the Badger culling against scientific advice and without publicising last year's results.

Anyone for Cricket?

August is the month of the Grasshopper and Cricket. I first started to hear the orthoptrerans in the last week of July and today they were in full song. I decided to go to the racecourse where there is a large expanse of grassland.

I spent 20 minutes pacing about searching them out and had some success identifying at least 2 species, 1 Bush-Cricket and 1 Grasshopper as well as a couple of other invertebrate species.

Roesel's Bush Cricket (Metrioptera roeslli)

This is a 'relatively' new species to the area and is an indicator of a changing climate. It was originally only found on the south coast but increasing temperatures have led to the species moving steadily north. Its strident call and large size help to make it easy to see and appears now to be the dominant species in many grassland habitats in Warwick.

The species is a handsome one with a very distinctive yellow saddle on its pronotum.

The individual I was able to photograph was a female judging by its long curved ovipositor that only crickets possess. Interestingly this female was spotted just after mating, The white gel like mass is a spermatophore. Basically a packet of sperm that he deposits to the underside of the abdomen, enzymes then dissolve the skin and the sperm is released into the female to meet with the eggs. Once fertilised she will use the ovipositor to pierce grass and rush stems to lay the ovoid eggs.

Lesser Marsh Grasshopper (Chorthippus albomarginatus)

Elsewhere I found a tiny grasshopper, barely the length of my thumb nail. It had short thick antennae and a pinkish hue to it, This like the cricket is a female. It is a highly varied species with different colour morphs ranging from green to pinky purple.

An adult individual was recorded a short distance away.

Hoverfly (Chyrsotoxum verralis)

This species of hoverfly is a mimic of a wasp and it is only on close inspection is it clear that it is a fly and not a wasp. The key identification feature in this case is the fly like eyes that are very different to those of a wasp.

Here is a a common wasp (Vespa vulgaris) taken on a different day to compare

Spined Mason Bee (Osmia spinulosa)

This is a species I have never recorded before, Its a handsome little bee with a distinctive fringe of yellow hairs around an otherwise black body. They have a fascinating life cycle, choosing to nest in empty snail shells.

Warwick in Bloom

Earlier in the year I wrote to the local papers to publicly thank the District Council for planting a wildflower strip at St Nicholas Park. At the time there was some local resistance as it was claimed that it looked unsightly, this of course was the preparation phase and now I can report on how it looks in full bloom.

The council have planted a range of plants include Ox-eye Daisy, Cornflower and Corn Marigold. Today the strip was a buzz with bees and flies. I had hoped for more butterflies - I only saw a Large Skipper and a Meadow Brown but it was early in the day and there was a wind. 

Some of the species seen included:

Eristalis arbustorum

Harlequin Ladybird

Red-Tailed Bumblebee

Stenodema calcarata 

Honey Bee (Worker)

Letter to the Environment Secretary

As suggested in a previous post I have e-mailed our new Environment Secretary - Andrea Leadsom,
I would urge everyone to consider emailing her to champion the environment.

Here is what I sent:

Dear Mrs Leadsom,

Congratulations on your new cabinet post and for performing so well during the EU Referendum campaign. Having had a week or two to settle into your new role I felt it was time to ask you to consider the direction of DEFRA especially in the light of ‘Brexit’.

You have a real opportunity to have a positive impact on nature conservation in the UK, more so perhaps than any previous minister for this portfolio. The exit from the EU will need us to firmly take the reins of our own environmental policy and it is about time Britain became a world leader in this regard. I ask you to seriously consider the following points:

1. Retention of Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Impact Assessment. The UK has had good Town and Country Planning legislation since 1949 and there is no reason for this to relaxed.

2. Abandon CAP and replace it with a system that marries nature conservation techniques with sustainable production. A stewardship scheme that rewards landowners for protecting wildlife whilst still allowing them to make a living.

3. Continue to lead the way in Climate Change policy and drive technology to combat it this is a way in which the environment and industry can both profit.

4. Maintain species protection with the Wildlife and Countryside Act and protect species under the Hunting with Dogs legislation.

5. Honour the designations and species protection outlined in Natura 2000 including SPA and SAC sites.

6. Maintain and strengthen existing UK designations such as SSSI's and plan wildlife sites on a landscape level as well as the local - expanding the living landscape efforts of the Wildlife Trusts. Link site protection with local interests and facilitate people’s ability to connect with nature.

7. Maintain existing Marine Protection Areas and expand them to partner with maintaining Fishing stocks for a buoyant and sustainable fishing fleet.

8. Take a sensible look at Re-wilding as a means of restoring ecological balance. A prime example is of how Pine Marten recovery has helped curtail Grey Squirrels and aid Red Squirrels or how Beavers act as ecosystem engineers.

9. Readdress the idea of using vaccination to control TB in the Cattle population. The science goes against the current Badger cull policy and yet it is still in place.

10. Continue to focus on Local Biodiversity Action Planning but emphasise real world application rather than just reporting and public relations/education campaigns.

 I know that much of what I write may seem revolutionary to some but I really do feel it is time DEFRA took the lead and that you could be just the minister to do this.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope some of it strikes a chord and  can be implemented into policy.

Regards

Our new environment secretary

With the change in leadership of the country following the Referendum we now have a new minister for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Ignoring that fact that I fundamentally disagree with the lumping together of the environment with food and rural affairs I thought I ought to take a moment to reflect on this new appointment.

We have had poor luck in this appointment in the past, the last two ministers  (Liz Truss and Owen Patterson) have presided over a department that maintained the status quo and it is hard to find any positive things they did for the environment, we all remember the introduction of the badger cull and the proposal to sell off the forests, the list goes on.

It lies with Andrea Leadsom to break this mold and shows us a minister who actually wants to improve the environment and not just watch it from the sidelines whilst drawing a pay check.
So who exactly is this Brexiteer conservative leader candidate.

She is a relatively new MP having only joined parliament in 2010. This inexperience is not something I hold against her. She was previously an Energy Minister which at least has some relation to environmental matters.

I decided to try and pick apart her voting record to look for pointers:

Voted in favour of a Green Investment Bank twice  
Voted against reducing carbon emissions to 20% of 1990 levels
Voted to reform the energy market to reduce carbon dioxide emissions twice
Voted not to exempt electricity generation plants using carbon storage from carbon emission limits
Voted against setting a target range for the amount of carbon dioxide per unit price of electricity generation
Voted to apply the climate change levy to electricity generated from renewable sources twice
Voted against charging 1st year vehicle tax based on emissions
Voted against a decarbonisation target
Voted not to reduce permitted carbon dioxide rates in new homes
Voted in favour of selling public forests in 2011
Voted for high taxes on planes 
Voted in favour of the Badger Cull twice
Voted against explicit need for environmental permits for fracking
Voted for a more extensive set of conditions to be put in place prior to fracking
Voted for more restrictions on fracking in National Parks and AONB's

This is quite a confusing list on the face of it, there seems to be significant good and bad votes here. This could mean that Andrea is open to constructive advice and that she at least considers matters before voting rather than sitting solidly behind an opinion and refusing to change her position. This could work both ways.

What does this mean for the environment..? To be honest I m not sure, Andrea however needs to be given the benefit of the doubt for now. The biggest thing I want Andrea to accept is the need to weigh scientific advice more highly than previous ministers have and to leave the economy to the business and treasury, her role is to safeguard the environment and the rural community.

I will be writing to Andrea this week to urge her to consider some matters, mostly those I have raised in previous blogs such as Brexit -what now for nature conservation?

I would like everyone that reads this blog to write to her and to get your friends to do likewise, lets make the department more environmentally aware again.