Species of the Month 2015

By Peter Thompson, GWCT Advisor

January – Stickleback February - Comfrey March – Pussy willow April - Bullfinch May – Eel June – Wild boar July - Cleavers

August - Starfish September – Red kite October – Horsetail November – Polecat December – Tawny Owl

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January 2015 – The stickleback

When I was a nipper, I had a number of aquariums on the go. Not with any frilly, brightly coloured warm water loving “foreign” species, mind you! – Oh no, I kept home-caught sticklebacks and stone loaches in my tanks!

Sticklebacks in particular fascinated me, and I would urge anyone with children who show even the slightest interest in wildlife to set up a small tank with sticklebacks and encourage them to study these “tiddlers”. They are really easy to look after and – you never know – it might just be the trigger that starts a lifelong interest in natural history!

In the UK there are three recognised species: the three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus and the nine-spined stickleback Pungitius pungitius can be found in freshwater, saltwater or brackish waters, whereas the fifteen-spined stickleback Spinachia spinachia is purely marine.

I am going to concentrate here on the most commonly found species in the UK: the three-spined stickleback. They are found widely in ponds, lakes, ditches, streams and rivers but don’t always have three spines along their back, sometimes there are only two and occasionally there are four. These sharp spines, coupled with large bony side plates (which they have rather than scales) help to provide some protective armour against predators.

Should another fish try to swallow a stickleback, the fish will immediately raise up the spines so that it cannot be swallowed, resulting in all but the largest fish having to spit the potential meal back out, completely unharmed!

Sticklebacks are noted for their highly ritualized breeding behaviour, with the male in particular playing a key role. Breeding usually takes place during the spring, by which time the male develops a bright red throat and belly and performs a striking “zig-zag” courtship dance to attract a mate. He also builds a roofed nest out of vegetation, all glued together by threadlike, mucous secretions from his kidneys, known as spiggin. (What a great word!)

The male then coaxes a female into the arched nest to lay her eggs, following her there so as to fertilize the eggs. More than one female may be chosen, and each female may lay up to 200 eggs. Once the nest is full, the male become an aggressive guard, attacking any intruder that dares to come close, while also fanning the eggs with his pectoral fins to supply them with oxygen, until they are ready to hatch some four weeks later.

All of these antics can be watched close up, taking place quite happily in your very own tank. You can feed your captive sticklebacks on tiny bits of chopped up worm or even raw mince.

So how do you go about catching your stickleback? Well that’s great fun too! I have put a link below for instructions on how to make your very own trap out of a plastic bottle. What is more I can vouch that these do work – and will catch you other things besides Sticklebacks!!

So come on parents – get those kids of yours away from the goggle-box and into some serious natural history studies! Keeping burnstickles, jacksharps, pricklebacks, baggie minnows or red doctors – some of the many vernacular names for the three-spined stickleback – should captivate the children. But even if it doesn’t, they will surely fascinate you!

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February 2015 – Comfrey

Comfrey (Symphytum officinale ) is a perennial herb of the family boraginaceae, to which other well-known plants belong such as borage and forget-me-not. Comfrey has a dark, almost black, turnip-like root that can drill a long way down into the sub-soil, sometimes up to an incredible 3 metres! The plant has large, wide hairy leaves and produces small bell-shaped flowers of various colours, typically of cream and purple, though these can vary quite widely. It is native to Europe and is usually found growing in damp places, such as along river banks and ditches.

There are a number of different hybrid species also commonly found in the UK, the most frequent being known as Russian comfrey, which is generally more bristly and has flowers that tend to be more blue or violet in colour.

Many gardeners like to grow some comfrey as it is a particularly valuable source of fertility. Those searching roots can glean a good number of nutrients from the deeper soils, many of which would not normally be available to shallower-rooted plants. These are made available through its fast-growing big leaves that, lacking fibres, can be quickly broken down to produce a thick black liquid.

Comfrey is in particular an excellent source of potassium, which is of course an essential plant nutrient. Its leaves contain up to two or three times more potassium than an average farmyard manure. What is more, a mature comfrey plant can be harvested up to four or five times a year as it will rapidly regrow, and will be ready for further cutting about five weeks later. It is said that the best time to cut comfrey is shortly before flowering, for this is when it is at its most potent in terms of the nutrients that it offers.

Comfrey can continue growing into mid-autumn, but it is not advisable to continue taking cuttings after early autumn in order to allow the plants to build up winter reserves. Also, if you allow it to produce flowers, it will attract many bumble bees who absolutely love its thimble shaped flowers.

Comfrey leaves can be easily turned into liquid fertiliser, either by rotting the leaves down in rainwater for four-to-five weeks (thus producing a ready-to-use fertiliser) or by stacking dry leaves under a weight in a container with a hole in the base. When the leaves decompose, a thick black comfrey concentrate is collected which not only stinks, but is also quite strong, so should be diluted with water at about 15:1 before use.

Herbalists have long used comfrey. Its traditional name of knitbone coupled with the derivation of its Latin name symphytum – which comes from the Greek symphyo meaning “to unite” – tells you immediately that it was highly regarded because it stimulates cell division and can be remarkably effective in healing broken bones. The plant was also historically used to treat a wide variety of ailments ranging from bronchial problems, arthritis, burns and skin conditions.

Oh, and by the way, should you ever get stung by a stinging nettle, forget dock leaves if you happen to have comfrey to hand, as it is absolutely the best thing to rub on nettle stings. Pick a leaf, spit on it, rub it between your hands till it starts breaking up and then apply onto the affected area! The pain will disappear as if by magic!

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March 2015 – The pussy willow

Once March arrives we can start to keep a look out for pussy willows coming into flower. Their easily recognisable light grey, oval-shaped, furry male catkins are meant to resemble a cat’s paw, hence the name “pussy”. They also used to be known as goslings, which seems to have fallen out of favour somewhat, but I love as they really do resemble miniature, newly hatched geese! Eventually these catkins burst open with golden yellow pollen. Female catkins are longer, with a silvery green appearance and because pussy willow is what is called a dioecious plant, male and female flowers grow on separate trees.

Pussy willow is in fact a country name for the goat willow (Salix caprea) and is also commonly used to describe the grey willow (Salix cinerea), as the two species are incredibly similar and both have the pussy-like catkins. What is more, they quite often hybridise with each other. If that’s not confusing enough, both species are also sometimes referred to as sallows, with the goat willow being known as ‘great sallow’ and grey willow as ‘common sallow’. You can perhaps see now why I like to call them all pussy willows, especially as most folk will know which tree you are talking about without trawling through the botanical niceties!

Pussy willow is native to the UK, most of Europe and also parts of Asia. You can find this little tree, which grows no bigger than 10 metres tall, just about anywhere that is not too drought-prone, as along with most willows, it likes to keep its feet in the damper soils.

Pussy willow is a hugely important plant for providing an early spring source of pollen and nectar for many species of insect and a good number, including the stunning purple emperor butterfly, also rely on the foliage as a food source.

It is, of course, not only the wildlife that owes a debt to this group of trees: the willow or Salix family. We too are indebted to willows for giving rise to the world's most widely used medicine. The ancient Egyptians and many other old civilisations used willow bark for rheumatism and headaches. In 1763, Edward Stone, a vicar from Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, made the first scientific study of the effects of powdered willow bark when he treated patients suffering from rheumatic fever. The active ingredient he was investigating was salicin, which eventually led to the manufacture of acetyl salicylic acid, better known as aspirin.

You don’t need to chew the bark, though. If you have a headache or feel stressed out, just find a pussy willow tree in full flower, rest against its trunk and listen to the hum of bees in the boughs above. All will soon be cured!

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April 2015 – The bullfinch

The male bullfinch is a stunning bird, unmistakable with his vibrantly bright pinkish-red breast and cheeks, grey back, black cap and tail, and bright white rump, seen as he flies off into the thicket. The female lacks this colourful breast so is often harder to spot, however, should you see the male, keep looking as the female will surely be close by, as these birds stay together as a pair through the year.

Just the other day I spent a while watching a pair of bullfinch feeding on the seeds of wild clematis, or old man’s beard as many call this climber. I don’t recall ever seeing these secretive finches feeding on this plant before. They usually feed on the seeds or “keys” of the ash tree and also like to consume dock and honesty seed too, while I have also seen them feasting on the little black seeds of brassicas such as kale.

But it is their taste for the emerging buds of fruit trees that has quite literally been the downfall of this solidly built finch, as they were once considered a serious 'pest' of fruit crops.

During the 1950s and 60s many bullfinches were trapped and shot in an attempt to protect the orchards in Kent, Herefordshire and Worcestershire and students were employed to wander around the fruit farm banging drums, firing off blanks and generally disturbing the birds in an effort to move them on. Some commercial fruit farms are said to have killed up to a thousand bullfinch in just one year.

Bullfinch have always frequented gardens with plenty of cover in the form of trees and shrubs, but often they would go unseen to those who do not know their rather melancholy call, which reminds me of a gate hinge in need of a good squirt of oil.

However, lately individual birds have begun to use bird tables and seed hoppers, feeding on sunflower seeds in particular, making them far more noticeable. I believe this could well be a learned habit, copied from those in the “know”, similar to when blue tits learnt to take the tops off milk bottles to feed on the cream. An individual bullfinch adult will teach youngsters of the trick and even other adults may learnt what to do, so that it becomes common place in certain localities.

This sounds a little daft really, but it is only in the last few years that this behaviour has been recorded in this country, while it has been quite common on the continent for some time. I have a friend who tells me that he now has a regular stream of bullfinch coming to seed hoppers and that once one started to visit, others quickly followed.

However, I see bullfinch in my garden every day – but certainly not on the array of feeders I have distributed around the garden. They are obviously waiting for an experienced teacher to turn up and hold a class in “how to dine out at the fast food outlet”!

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May 2015 – The eel

Some good news for a change! 2014 saw the biggest migration of young eels or elvers arrive in UK waters for more than 20 years. Even better news is that this appears not to have been a one-off, as so far this year there looks to be an even better run of elvers, with some estimates doubling the numbers over last year.

Eels are the only European fish to leave freshwater to spawn in the sea – the opposite to salmon, which travel upstream to spawn in freshwater. European eels migrate to their spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea, which is located to the south-west of Bermuda, around 4,500 miles from the UK. Eels do not begin to undertake spawning migrations until the males are between 6-12 years old and the females are 9-18 years of age. They do not feed at all on their migration to the breeding grounds.

Once the mature adult eels enter the Sargasso Sea, usually in late winter and spring, they go down to depths of between 400-700 metres to spawn and it is estimated that each female produces over 1 million eggs. The adult eels do not leave the Sargasso Sea and are thought to die after spawning.

Travelling eastwards on ocean currents, the returning young change into transparent “glass eels” as they reach the shallow waters close to the continent, eventually arriving on the Atlantic coast of Europe after a journey that can take as long as three years. The mortality rate for this epic journey is an unbelievably high 99.8%, which is why so many eggs are laid by females.

Despite these losses, huge numbers of elvers used to arrive on our shores, in particular along western river estuaries and travel upstream, many millions being caught by local people who harvested them as a delicacy. Frampton-on-Severn used to hold an annual competition to see who could consume the most “pints of elvers”. It is perhaps hard to believe today, that in those days the left over catch was spread on surrounding fields as fertiliser.

The elvers move upstream hiding under rocks and in crevices, until eventually they be found in almost any freshwater habitats, not only rivers and streams, but also lakes and larger ponds right across the country. They will spend the following years reaching sexual maturity, before eventually heading off to the Sargasso Sea once more.

During this time in freshwater they can grow into big specimens – the current UK rod caught record is 11lb 2oz, held by S Terry, Kingfisher Lake, near Ringwood, Hampshire, in 1978 and is one of the longest-standing records in UK freshwater angling.

The Jewish laws of Kashrut forbid the consumption of eels. According to the King James version of Leviticus, “Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you”, so while it is acceptable to eat fin-fish, eels – lacking fins – count as an “abomination” and should not be eaten! Not everyone thinks along these lines, however, particularly perhaps the Japanese, who nowadays consume more than 70 per cent of the global eel catch.

In the past, eel pie and mash houses set up by the Victorians, became hugely popular amongst London workers, although there have been market stalls selling eels since the eighteenth century.

Frederick Cooke opened his first shop in Clerkenwell in 1862, promoting eels as the “poor-man’s delicacy”. He was followed by the Kellys, an Irish family that arrived relatively late to the trade but quickly became known

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as the best. At the peak of their business, two tons of live eels were consumed per shop! Jellied eels – cooked eels set in an aspic jelly made from eel bones – were also a firm favourite with many Londoners.

If you decide that you might take a trip to London to try and locate some jellied eel or maybe a pie, take care not to head straight for the Eel Pie Club, as its aim has nothing to do with eels, but was instead formed to preserve and continue the heritage of rhythm and blues in the area where it all began in the 1960s – on Eel Pie Island.

A trip to this place could therefore leave you with some great sounds in your head, but a severely rumbling tummy! So, instead head to Kellys – which is still going! – in Roman Road Market in Bow, E3.

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June 2015 – Wild boar

After an absence of approximately 700 years, wild boar are roaming and breeding in the British countryside once again! It is thought that the original British wild boar probably became extinct by the 13th century. Following on from then, a number of re-introduced animals had also become extinct by the 17th century so that, until fairly recently, no free-living wild boar have been present in Britain.

However, nowadays wild boar sightings are reported from right across much of England and Wales, however most of these are possibly people spotting wandering individuals. This is because there are probably at present, only four sustainable populations. The two best known are those in the Weald in Kent/Sussex and those in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. The Kent/Sussex population is the oldest, but that in the Forest of Dean is the largest and most widespread. There are two other small established populations reported in South Devon and the Brecon Beacons, but the actual numbers involved is unknown.

Adult boar have thick bristly coats ranging in colour from brown, red-brown, dark grey or even black and the bristles are brindled with white or tan tips. Piglets have characteristic brown and cream longitudinal stripes making them look like little humbugs! These stripes are lost when the piglet is 3 to 4 months old, when the piglet then takes on a red colouration (reminiscent of a red squirrel's colouration) until it becomes an adult at approximately one year of age.

An adult boar’s body shape is “front-loaded” with a large head and shoulders tapering to smaller hind quarters. The body weight is also concentrated in the front half of the animal with a mature male being an impressive beast, potentially weighing up to 200kg (31 stone), while females are generally smaller, weighing up to 130kg (20 stone). The maximum height reached for both sexes is about 1 metre. It goes without saying that you do not want to prang into one on a dark night, as your car might not look great afterwards!

Wild boar have exceptional hearing and sense of smell, but poor eyesight. They are very vocal and constantly communicate with other group members through a series of grunts and squeals. They are mainly nocturnal and prefer to live in small social groups referred to as sounders. Sounders are matriarchal and organised around a core of two or three mature reproductive females with their most recent litters, plus the surviving young and sub-adults from previous litters. Group size varies between six and 30 animals. Mature males tend to be found in the vicinity of the group only during the breeding season.

Farrowing (giving birth) can occur at just about any time but peaks in April, with a typical litter size usually being between 4-6 piglets. I have seen newly born piglets in December, scampering around in the snow in Italy. Wild boar are omnivorous and will consume a large variety of food items, but plant material usually accounts for 90% of their diet and animal matter the remaining 10%. Plant matter consists of roots, bulbs and tubers, unearthed by rooting with their long snouts, which can leave pastures literally looking as though they have been ploughed!

Animal matter can consist of mice, bird’s eggs, snakes, lizards, worms, beetles and carrion. The diet changes to accommodate seasonally available items and forest fruits (for example, acorns, beech mast, chestnuts) are particularly sought after. In times of shortage, agricultural crops are sometimes raided, particularly fields of maize, turnips and potatoes.

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In some countries this habit has turned wild boar into an agricultural pest, whilst in a number of urban areas they have also become a public menace, raiding gardens and turning over rubbish bins. For instance in Berlin they cull around 2,000 “feral” boar annually, to keep them in check.

However, elsewhere in Europe the hunting of wild boar is economically and culturally important, to the extent that supplementary feeding sometimes is used to ensure populations are maintained. In some regions hunters are responsible for compensating for the damage boar create outside the hunting areas.

Generally wild boar keep themselves to themselves, with only the occasional incident involving a pet dog being injured. Sows with young piglets are potentially more dangerous than other boar because they may attempt to defend their young.

Time will tell if they are to become a common sight in your neck of the woods!

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July 2015 – Cleavers

When a plant has earned itself around 80 colloquial names, you can bet your bottom dollar that it somehow plays a significant role in the countryside! Perhaps the most commonly used of these country names is goosegrass, however catch-weed, clites, hedge-burs, herriff, scratch, stick-a-back and in Scotland, sticky willy, are all regularly used names for this arable plant.

I’m sure that as kids we have all thrown some of this “sticky” plant onto the backs of grown-ups and run off laughing! It is in fact not sticky, but is covered in lots and lots of tiny little hooks, which the seeds in particular use to catch onto a passing animal or human, to get themselves transported to another part of the garden or farm.

Cleavers can be found right across the country, but prefer moisture retentive soils with high fertility and so feel very at home amongst our farm crops or vegetable patch. In fact trials have shown that the cleaver plant is more responsive to nitrogen, growing larger and producing more seed, than the farmer’s cereal crop that it was intended for! Unbelievably, this annual plant can germinate in the autumn and by using this added fertility, can grow up to a length of three metres by the following harvest.

Cleavers have an amazing ability to grow and fill any available space, which means that they soon compete with the crop, using up fertiliser, taking up sunlight and moisture, and eventually growing over the top of the cereal, making harvest much more difficult. In fact, when compared to other weeds that farmers have to contend with, just one cleaver per square metre will reduce yield by as much as three wild oats or 14 black-grass plants. It is 12 times more competitive than the next nearest broad-leaved weed, the poppy.

It has been shown that around 500 cleavers per square metre can halve a cereal crop’s yield, so you can start to see why farmers despise this plant so much. But that sounds like a very high infestation – surely that is a rare occurrence? Well, yes it is… but only because most farmers spray a weed-killer each year to kill them off!

Each cleaver plant can produce up to 500 seeds, so you only need 150 plants across a hectare (2 ½ acres) – which is not that many – for their numbers to rise to 25,000 the following year! Some farmers will plough the seeds deep under the soil if they have a problem, however, they need to be careful not to plough them up to the surface again the following year, as cleaver seed can remain viable for up to three years!

So you have to give it to the good old cleaver: we have thrown everything in our armoury at it and yet it is still a very common and persistent plant within our arable crops.

It is not all bad though, as the plant is well known for its diuretic benefits and for treating common conditions that require overall cleansing of the body. It is interesting that many animals seem to know this, as horses, sheep, pigs, chickens and of course geese (hence the name “goosegrass”) will often eat large quantities of this plant. Dogs too will sometimes eat it voraciously when a little off colour.

Maybe this is another little connection with the world around us that we humans have lost, yet animals retain?

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August 2015 – Starfish

The first thing to say is that starfish, or sea stars as they are often called, are not fish! They belong to the class of organisms known as Echinodermata. Echinoderms (meaning spiny-skinned) are invertebrates without a head and in the starfish’s case, have a hard skeleton under its skin and a body plan based on a (usually) five-pointed star shape with a mouth based in the middle. This group also includes other spiny species like sea urchins, sea cucumbers and brittle stars. There are around 1,500 different species of starfish in the world and around 32 species to be found in British waters.

Starfish move around by using hundreds of tube type feet, which are located on their underside, but these feet are important for a number of other uses too. As starfish have no blood, they instead use a water vascular system, sucking up sea water through their feet and using this to transport oxygen around their bodies, thereby ‘breathing’ through their feet.

These feet are also used to help the starfish eat mussels, clams and even barnacles. Once a suitable shellfish such as a mussel is found, the starfish goes to work on trying to force the shell open with its strong legs. Eventually the mussel tires and opens very slightly, but that tiny gap is all that is needed as the starfish’s stomach can now physically leave its body and be inserted into the mussel’s shell through the opening, where it then can digest the soft flesh inside at its own leisure! This feeding mechanism means that starfish can eat much larger prey than their tiny mouths would normally allow.

If a starfish is grabbed by one of its arms, it can allow its arm to drop off, letting it escape. It can then amazingly regenerate a new arm. In fact, a starfish can be left with as little as one quarter of its central disk after an attack, but can still regenerate itself over time back into a perfect specimen once more.

Scientists have known for some time that human foetuses can apparently effortlessly heal wounds without scar and that children up to the age of two can partially regrow amputated digits, so the potential for adult humans to regrow limbs may well also be possible.

By studying the genes from amphibians such as the salamander, alongside the humble starfish, scientists have made many new discoveries that are useful for limb regeneration, and a growing number now believe that it is time to develop the technology exploiting these discoveries to regrow human limbs.

So, maybe one day in the not too distant future, someone wandering along a beach spots a washed up starfish and stoops down to pick it up, using their newly regrown limb to do so. I wonder if they will be aware of the connection.

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September 2015 – Red kite

A bird that I never fail to marvel at when I see it in flight is the magnificently graceful red kite, effortlessly riding the air currents on wings of nearly two metres in length, with only the occasional hint of a flap, using its long forked tail as a rudder to make small directional adjustments.

Nowadays it is a relatively common sight, so it is difficult to believe that the BTO 1968-72 breeding atlas showed that numbers had declined to just 19 breeding pairs, all confined to central Wales. What was perhaps even more alarming is that in the 1980s, blood samples were taken from a number of chicks in Welsh nests and subsequently DNA tests were conducted on those samples by scientists from Nottingham University. They showed that the whole population of Welsh kites were descended from just one female, never a good scenario for the long-term success of a small, isolated population.

Persecution was the reason behind the extermination of the bird from all other parts of Britain. The 16th Century saw a series of Vermin Acts, requiring ‘vermin’, including the red kite, to be killed throughout the country as they were deemed to be a threat to game, chickens and even sheep, as they were often found feeding on the carcasses of farm animals.

Red kites are primarily scavengers, however that is certainly not to say that they will not take young game birds and other “live” prey items, but they will clean a large carcass in a similar way to a vulture. Because they are a relatively weak bird, they rely on other predators to open up the tough skin, so that they can then access the soft flesh within. Decomposition also softens the dead animal’s skin, allowing kites to rip the body open themselves, devouring the putrid flesh. Just like vultures, they have highly specialised digestive systems, which produce powerful acids to neutralise rotting meat, making them resistant to bacteria such as salmonella and E. coli.

Historically red kites would have been a common sight in our larger cities such as London (Shakespeare referred to kites no fewer than 15 times), where they fed on the disgusting waste that littered the streets, thereby offering a useful service. Unfortunately, this apparent fearlessness of humans, which still exists in kites to this very day, made them particularly easy targets for those who wanted rid of them.

Between 1989 and 1994, kites from Spain were imported and released into the Chilterns by the RSPB and English Nature (now Natural England). Red kites started breeding in the Chilterns in 1992 and now there could be over 1,000 breeding pairs in the area. Red kites of Swedish and German origin were also introduced to other parts of the country, while since 1999, chicks have also been taken from the Chilterns to re-introduction sites in other parts of the country. There are now estimated to be at least 1,600 pairs in the UK.

Shakespeare knew all about the peculiar penchant the “puttock” – a name that Shakespeare often used for the red kite (in Wales it was called boda wennol, meaning “swallow buzzard”) - has for lining its nest with a range of collected oddities, some of which might well be stolen from off the washing line. He warned “when the kite builds, look to lesser linen”, in The Winter’s Tale (Act 4, Scene 3).

Along with the usual material of grass and wool used for lining the nest, everything from football flags, magazine pages, plastic bags, tea towels, lottery tickets, socks to even a pair of frilly knickers have been found adorning kite’s nests! One nest even had a handbag in it, which prompted me to make a mental note to myself, that when I next misplace my car keys or bank cards, I think I will just blame it on the local pair of red kites!

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October 2015 – Horsetail

Firstly, let me make quite clear which plant I am talking about here! Many people also call this plant “Mare’s tail”, which strictly speaking is a totally different plant species found in aquatic habitats: Hippurus vulgaris!

Horsetail, on the other hand, comes from the family Equisetum (from the Latin equus (“horse”) and seta (“bristle”) and has around eight or so species in the UK. However, they are not always that easy to identify, as they form hybrids and their characteristics can be quite variable.

Horsetail originates from a group of tall plants, some of which grew up to 30 metres tall and were one of the most dominant plants during the Paleozoic era, first appearing some 400 million years ago. To help you put that into some sort of perspective, dinosaurs appeared about 230 million years ago, so you can see just how long this plant has been around! Indeed, fossil findings show us that horsetails have retained multiple ancient features, indicating that this ancient spore-bearing plant could possibly be the oldest living species within today’s vascular plants.

The first stems of horsetail appear in the spring and look a little like asparagus, but with a large brown cone-like structure at the head of the plant, which holds the spores. Later in the year, larger stems emerge with string-like, tough leaves, giving the plant the appearance of a small pine tree, or maybe, if you stretch your imagination somewhat, a little like a horse’s tail.

Horsetail contains more silica within its stems than any other plant in the world. This trace element really helps to bind protein molecules together within the blood vessels and connective tissues and promotes the body’s absorption of calcium, an important component in tissue repair and bone and cartilage formation.

Another common name for horsetails is “scouring rush”, as the plant contains its silica as crystals, making the stems an excellent material for cleaning pots and pans. Historically, people tied bunches of horsetail stems together to form homemade scouring pads, which were particularly favoured for cleaning pewter.

One or two of you may have discovered as children that the stems of horsetail can be broken apart at the junction of each segment and then miraculously put perfectly back together again, giving it the name of “Lego plant”. I wonder if Stone Age children actually played with Lego a long time before we invented it!

I have gone to great lengths to point out how amazing this ancient plant is and how little it has changed over 400 million years, and yet, despite staying largely unchanged over all this time, it still thrives in today’s modern world.

I’m quite sure I have not convinced you all, though, as I am fully aware that if it occurs in your garden or paddock, it can be a real headache to get rid of. (Bruise and crush it, followed by a number of repeat applications of glyphosate will eventually, if you are persistent, bring it under control!)

Just remember, though: it was here long before us!

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November 2015 – Polecat

I have chosen the polecat as my species for this month, as I came face to face with one in the headlights of my car the other evening, as I drove up the single track lane to my house in central Hampshire. It was not a long meeting, but it gave me enough of its time to be fairly certain that it was a true polecat and not a “polecat ferret”.

The character I saw had the typical “bandit” features of pale cheek patches and white behind the dark face mask and had no sign of any pale throat patch, which a cross polecat and feral ferret usual possesses. Its body also appeared almost black in the headlights, whereas the hybrid usually has a much paler body and quite often white paws too.

The polecat used to be widely distributed across the country, but by the early 1900s it had been reduced to a population estimated to be around 5,000, based on central Wales. It was persecuted by farmers and gamekeepers largely because of its wide and varied diet, which quite often included gamebirds and domestic fowl. Indeed the name polecat probably comes from the old French words “pole chat” (poule in modern French) meaning chicken cat.

Where rabbits are plentiful, they make up a major part of the diet as polecats are slim enough to hunt them within their burrows. In winter, rats become a preferred food, and sites with good rat populations such as around farm buildings become the usual haunt for this largely nocturnal species. However, the polecat is nothing if it is not an opportunist and so any potential prey that presents itself in a vulnerable position, is dicing with death! A good example of this is during the late winter spawning period for frogs and toads, when many will be consumed by the local polecat!

The polecat female which is called a jill, (male is a hob) brings up the young kittens or kits, as they are usually called, completely on her own. She often chooses a rabbit burrow, log pile or even under a garden shed to make her den.

Radio tracking has shown that a polecat’s territory can vary widely in size, probably dependent on the quality of available habitat and food availability. Male polecats can range over an area of up to 500 ha, while females may utilise an area as big as 375 ha. On occasions, however, when there is an ample food supply, the area over which they travel can be as little as 16 ha.

Polecats have one litter a year, with 5-10 young born blind and hairless in late May or early June. They begin to take meat from three weeks, and stay with their mothers for 2-3 months. They reach adult size by autumn, and breed at one year old.

Now that the polecat is fully protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, it seems to be continuing its range expansion from its historical stronghold in mid Wales, into the Midlands, and southern and eastern English counties. There are also pockets where the species appears to exist, probably following introductions, in the north of England and Scotland.

To give us a better understanding of this expansion, the Vincent Wildlife Trust (VWT) is carrying out a national polecat survey, which aims to gather up-to-date information on the distribution of the polecat in Britain, and they are keen to receive any current records and carcasses (collected during 2014-2015) of wild-living polecats or feral ferrets.

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So, if you have encountered this masked mammal on your travels, or found one squished on the road, why not send your record into the VWT – you have just two months left before the survey finishes!

One final little ditty on polecats for you, which you might consider squeezing into the pub quiz! A group of polecats is known as a “chine”.

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December 2015 – The Tawny owl

The Tawny owl is our most common and widespread owl, being found across the whole Britain, but not at all in Ireland. It is also absent from the Northern Isles and rather bizarrely, from the Isle of Wight too, even though the owls that live along the coast of Hampshire can quite clearly see the island! I imagine it would only take them a matter of minutes to fly across!

The Tawny owl is perhaps best known for its distinctive hooting call that seems to accompany all scary films, the moment anyone steps outside! Interestingly, the “Kewick” call is usually made by the female and the famous Hoo, hoo-hoo-hoo is only ever made by the answering male.

The tawny owl is really a bird of wooded landscapes including towns, as long as there are plenty of mature trees around. In the countryside they largely feed on small mammals, but also birds, bats amphibians and even earthworms. In towns they tend to take a higher proportion of birds, plucked from there roosting sites by sharp talons.

These sharp claws will also be used to good effect when protecting the nest site, especially when two or three downy youngsters are sitting in the tree hole or nest box. In fact the pioneering wildlife photographer, Eric Hoskings, (a childhood hero of mine) actually lost an eye trying to film owlets in a nest site, when he was ferociously attacked by an irate parent.

Accordingly, nowadays, bird ringers will kit themselves out with protective clothing, goggles and even a crash helmet when planning to ring young tawny owls!

What ringing has shown is that these owls are incredibly sedentary, with the average distance flown between being ringed and being recovered, of only 1km.

As the Tawny owl is a nocturnal species, it is heard far more than it is seen and accordingly it has to be surveyed specifically to find out its status, as ordinary day time surveys rarely account for any, unless they happen to be flushed from a conifer or ivy clad tree, where they are spending the day light hours.

The tawny owl is an early nester and lays 2-3 large, white, round eggs in late February and March and incubates them for 30 days. The nestlings will eventually fledge after 35-39 days, but remain dependent on their parents for two to three months afterwards.

The reason a tawny owl has such a rounded head with facial disks around each eye, is to allow the owl to direct sound waves to its ears. Its ears are hidden behind the feathers on either side of its head, and are slightly out of alignment with each other, giving the bird its exceptional directional hearing, while allowing it to pinpoint prey very precisely.

If you have never seen a Tawny owl close up in the wild, and would like to, then here is a little tip. On wet and windy nights, Tawnies will often resort to sitting on over-hanging tree branches above a minor road or lane which runs through a wooded area. I imagine that this form of hunting – predominantly using their eyes to spot a small mammal crossing the road - is adopted as their amazing hearing is somewhat limited by the noise that the wind and rain is making.

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If you travel slowly along in a car late at night, once the other traffic has died away, you have a good chance of picking up an owl sitting patiently on its branch. Using a high powered torch, it might even let you slowly get out of the car and take a good look, or even a photograph.

One bit of advice though, if you plan to do this. It might be sensible to have a “plan B” if the police turn up and ask you what you are up to. “Watching Tawny owls”, on a wet, windy and thoroughly miserable night, just might not cut the mustard with them!!

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