February Sunshine

As many of you will already know, we've had an incredibly warm and wet winter this year. This has led to many of our plant species beginning to grow a bit earlier than usual and to our wildlife being a bit more active than usual.

It seemed a shame to waste the good weather so I went to my local cemetery and country park to see what I could find.

My local cemetery supports a wide range of bird species and some bat species.

Primrose Primula vulgaris

Spring Crocus Crocus vernus

The daffodils are springing up everywhere

Garden Grape Hyacinth Muscari botryoides

Ivy-Leaved Toadflax Cymbalaria muralis

Spotted a Jay (Garrulus glandarius), characteristically quite elusive, so not a great photo!

Magpies (Pica pica) seem to be everywhere I go at the moment!

Came across a robin (Erithacus rubecula) perched on a branch.

Lovely sunshine across the fields.

Hart's Tongue Fern Asplenium scolopendrium

Muddy view across the lake.

Male blackbird Turdus merula

A crowd of Tufted Ducks Aythya fuligula

A particularly friendly one!

Blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus

A Dunnock Prunella modularis

Another lovely view across the lake.

Great Crested Grebe (unfortunately with crest down) Podiceps cristatus

Stinking Iris Iris foetidissima

Nice view from the hide with cormorants and gulls.

Ivy covered winter trees

Bad quality picture unfortunately, but there is a Chaffinch in there somewhere!

Robin in full song mode

Marsh Marigold Caltha palustris

Most of these pictures were taken at Cosmeston Lakes country park near Penarth in the Vale of Glamorgan. It is a lovely place and well worth a visit if you enjoy nature and walking! It also hosts a medieval village.

Cosmeston Lakes Website

February is a great time to go out bird watching as the trees have still not regained their leaves so it's much easier to see the birds moving about. The warmer weather also means they are likely to be more active.

It's also a great time to see our earliest flowering plants coming through like Daffodils and Marsh Marigold.

The UK Pipistrelle Bats

In the UK there are 3 breeding species of Pipistrelle bat, Common (Pipistrellus pipistrellus), Soprano (Pipistrellus pygmaeus) and Nathusius' (Pipistrellus nathusii)

It's pretty much impossible to go out listening for bats and not encounter Common or Soprano pips, they are everywhere and have adapted to a wide range of habitats and will happily roost in towns and cities.

Nathusius' Pipistrelle is less common than the other two, it is said to be widespread across the UK but sparse in population numbers, and it is also associated with bodies of water.


Here are some quick factfiles

Common pip with distinctive black mask

Name: Common Pipistrelle - Pipistrellus pipistrellus
Distribution: Common and widespread throughout the UK.
Emergence: Approx 20-35 mins after sunset.
Habitat: Found in a very wide range of habitats and is known to forage in farmland, parks, gardens, bodies of water and edge habitats like treelines and hedgerows. Can also be found in coniferous woodland, beaches and lower level mountainous areas.
Echolocation: ~46kHz, may be 40-50kHz depending on surroundings.

Call:



Sonogram (Analook):

Soprano pip, similar to common but smaller and without mask

Name: Soprano Pipistrelle - Pipistrellus pygmaeus
Distribution: Common and widespread throughout the UK, though possibly more common in northern Britain than the common pip.
Emergence: Approx 20-30 mins after sunset.
Habitat: More of a specialist in its choice of habitat than the common pip. It is common in areas with bodies of water such as rivers, canals, lakes, ponds and reservoirs, and in woodland edges and parks.
Echolocation: ~55kHz, may be 50-60kHz depending on surroundings.

Call:



Sonogram (Analook):

Nathusius' pip, paler in colour than common and soprano pips

Name: Nathusius' Pipistrelle - Pipistrellus nathusii
Distribution: Widespread but rare.
Emergence: Approx 20-30 mins after sunset.
Habitat: Deciduous woodland rides and edges and meadows, also typically associated with water such as rivers, lakes and canals. UK records are generally within a few km of water.
Echolocation: ~39kHz, may be 35-40kHz depending on surroundings.

Call:

Sonogram (Analook):

Hopefully this little Pipistrelle fact file has been interesting/useful to you.

Thanks to Elekon Bat Library for the bat calls!

Scratching the Surface on...UK Bats

I've been on a bit of a bat journey in the last couple of years! 

Back in May 2014 I didn't know much about bats, and as a city kid who seldom noticed them fluttering about they weren't really something I had thought about much before.

This all changed when I set my sights on a career in Ecology, as UK bat species and their roosts are protected by law. After a little bit of research and a few days of volunteering with a local consultancy it became clear to me that bats were a key part of the industry, and before I knew it I was off to shadow an ecologist on my first consultancy bat survey.

I was really excited to hear a bat echo locate for the first time on a heterodyne, I'd heard their high pitched squeaks occasionally while out and about at dusk but I'd never had the chance to listen to them properly before.

It was a rural site down in the wilds of the Vale of Glamorgan with some old derelict barns. The first bat I heard was a Daubenton's bat (Myotis daubentonii) which sounded like an explosion of marbles on the heterodyne, I also soon heard Common Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) and Soprano Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus) which sounded more like a series of smacks with some background bubbling.

By the end of the survey I knew I was a total bat convert, but I had no idea how I was ever going to learn and remember all the different species, especially with all those peculiar sounds they made. But equipped with the right heterodyne and some new books, I persevered and started to attend and undertake bat surveys regularly and began to tell them apart in no time.

My bat book recommendations:

1. British Bat Calls: A Guide to Species Identification. By Jon Russ - A great book for beginners, packed full of information about all the UK species and includes call sonograms.
2. Bat Surveys: Good Practice Guidelines. From the Bat Conservation Trust - Great if you're looking to swat up on survey technique and legislation etc. (can be downloaded for free from their website)

I also joined the Bat Conservation Trust and found that they had some bat sound samples that turned out to be really useful for field comparison.

Separating the species was also made easier by the type of heterodyne I used, the Elekon Bat Scanner. Some bat enthusiasts call this the 'lazy persons heterodyne' because it is automatic and therefore does not need to be tuned to the right frequency. Personally, I think it's a great little machine as you do not need to scroll through different frequencies whilst using it which ensures that you won't miss any bat species, as they can range from 15 KHz up to 114 KHz.

It's also great for when you're still learning, as knowing the exact frequency can help to separate similar sounding species like the Common and Soprano Pipistrelles. However, they are a little bit on the pricey side, so a Magenta dial-turn heterodyne might be a better investment if you just fancy being a casual bat listener. 

There is also a great app from Elekon for your smartphones. It's called Elekon Bat Library, it's completely free and has a library of calls for comparison in the field.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to upload some sound bites later in the year, as I will most likely be bat surveying again soon during the survey season which is May-September.

Dead Brown Long Eared bat found hanging on a barn wall.

Here's a quick list of bat survey/watching essentials you may need....

1. Something that tells you the time - Bats come out at dusk, just before and after sunset, keep an eye on the time so you know when to expect them.
2. Heterodyne - Automatic or not.
3. Camp chair - Might as well make yourself comfortable, but feel free to get up and walk around.
4. Warm clothes - It can get chilly in the dark when you're not moving around much and no one likes being cold.
5. Snacks/flask of tea (optional) - If you're planning on being there a while...
6. Torch - We can take being able to see for granted when the sun is out, even just an app on your phone will be extremely useful if you find yourself in a dark field.

Look forward to some future posts about our UK species soon and I wish you happy batting in the future!

The Welcome Post

So.... Welcome to my new blog!

I don't know how you ended up here, but I'm glad that you did.

I am a UK wildlife enthusiast based in Wales, with an MSc in Ecology and Conservation and an undergraduate degree in Geography. As you might have guessed from the blog title, I'm an aspiring ecologist, and whilst I may have worked as one in the past, I am yet to gain my first permanent (dream) position.

I'm using this blog as a resource for myself to further my knowledge and share what I know in the hope that it may be of some use to other aspiring ecologists. I'm also planning to share some posts with interesting wildlife news and things I find on my nature excursions.

Maybe you'll learn something you didn't know before! I've been doing that a lot lately....

The River Severn at Ironbridge.

Ciao x-x

Also, please note that the picture used to create the fox banner was not taken by me :)