Top 10 Gatwick natural history highlights: 2015

Seeing as I'm desk-bound and continually procuring new strains of rhinopharyngitis previously unknown to medical science, this seemed a good time to round up my Gatwick wildlife highlights....

1. Black is back

One sunny morning early in the year; a stunning, entirely black Grass Snake...

Grass Snake (Natrix natrix)

It turned up on several occasions in the North West Zone, so fingers crossed it will make another appearance this coming spring.

Grass Snake - Natrix natrix subsp. persa?

Also hanging out with blackie was his unusually stripey pal... perhaps related to the European subspecies of Grass Snake, which are also striped. Some DNA swabbing and testing is hopefully in the pipeline....

2. Encounters of the fluffy kind

Hazel Dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius)

Two of them!!! Found after around 3 years of surveying the ancient woodlands in the Land East of the Railway Line...

TICK.

3. Another Long-horned beastie

Long-horned General (Stratiomys longicornis) female - Photo by Andrew Halstead

On our Wildlife Recording Day back in May, along the River Mole, Andrew Halstead turned up our star find - an impressive soldierfly named the Long-horned General. This very scarce species is normally associated with coastal habitats and salt water, but a few have recently appeared in land-locked areas.

Andrew also swept our first Long-horned Bee (Eucera longicornis) of the year.

4. Tigers on our Jerseys

It was just another evening at Gatwick Moth Club with bickering, car-biscuits and male Glow-worms trying to mate with the green generator light. 

A massive Tiger Moth turned up suddenly on Brad's jumper, sparking off another, erm, discussion....

Jersey Tiger Moth (Euplagia quadripunctaria)

In the end we had to believe our eyes; not just one but two Jersey Tiger Moths at Gatwick Airport... A new tick for life-long moth-er Jake Everitt!

5. Ashley's new record

Grass Snake (Natrix natrix) Photo by Julia Gregory

It might just be a plain-ol' Grass Snake, but for us it was a landmark moment as this one had turned up in Ashley's Field... another first in 3 years! This is hopefully an indication that our grassland enhancements are paying off, with amphibians and reptiles benefiting.

6. Ninja bats

I spent a suspenseful dawn with Laurie Jackson, standing in the twilight with detectors on, awaiting bat re-entry into the roost at the old Charlwood Park Farmhouse...

Pipistrelle activity on a bat detector

We picked up plenty of activity and had great views of Long-eared bats landing up on the eastern side of the building, scurrying up and disappearing under the loose tiles. At least three different species of bat are using this building as a roost!

7. The Lost Jewel

Jewel Beetle (Agrilus sp.)

A bitter-sweet highlight (and one Scotty Dodd has not yet forgiven me for) was the time I let go of this stunning Jewel Beetle before he had identified it to species. Not matter that we also procured a carabid beetle called Amarus strenua (Red Data Book 3 species), which was probably even more interesting, so should more than make up for this.

Scotty's tentative i.d: Agrilus sp. indet. cf.bickerisabloodymindedliberator

But I think insult to injury were my rubbish photos.

8. Badger Badger Badger Badger

Just that one step closer to getting some good footage of Badger (Meles meles) at Gatwick.

A Work In Progress (like all of my photography).

9. My kind of human

Meath Green Primary School counting our nest boxes in the Dormouse Challenge

The Forest Schools are Tom Simpson's project, and I've really enjoyed meeting this keen bunch from Meath Green Primary. These tiny humans have been learning all about their surroundings in Gatwick's woodlands, east of the railway line.
   I wish I'd gone to this school!

Woodland festivities

10. The smallest of owls...

Undoubtedly one of my best moments was all the way back in February, while on a bird survey with Tom Forward. This was my first sighting of a Little Owl (Athene noctua) in the wild.
Is it very tiny, or just very far away... or perhaps a blurry picture of a lumpy branch?

Coming up in 2016: even more wildlife photography!

Early Winter Bird Survey 2015 - North West Zone

Friday December 18th

R2-D2 Dreamliner

It was an incredibly a mild December morning when Jedi Birder Tom Forward, of the order Gatwick Greenspace Partnership, swooped in for our early winter bird survey.

The North West Zone, located in the Outer Rim Territories of Gatwick

Straight away we felt a strong presence in the force, scooping up a brand new species for our surveys landside at Gatwick... A Coot! 

It's a little odd that we haven't picked up Coot on previous surveys, but I have checked the ancient iRecord archive scrolls, dating back a whole 3 years and true it is confirmed to be.

  In some nearby scrub, we gained privileged views of a lone Fieldfare breaking its fast on tasty rose hips...

Other thrush species picked up here were Redwing, Song Thrush, Blackbird and Mistle Thrush. An excitedly singing Dunnock also made its presence known from a nearby hedgerow. 

   At the end of the canalised section of river, where the Mole begins to meander, we saw a dark shape nip into the reed bed... could it be?

The Water Rail victory dance

The calls of Water Rail are pretty unmistakable (and bizarre), sounding more like a squealing piglet than a wetland bird. Reed Bunting, Song Thrush and Wren also sounded off, hidden from view in the reeds, while a flock of Long-tailed Tits moved through the trees.

Reeds along the River Mole

Passing around the north side of Brockley Wood, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw and Jay were our first corvids of the day and the lively sound of a Redwing flock came from somewhere in the gloom. Incredibly, signs of spring were cropping up everywhere...

Elder (Sambucus nigra) coming into leaf

Out of the woods and into a busy section of floodplain, with Fieldfare flying overhead and mixed flocks of Blue Tits, Great Tits and Goldcrests foraged in the tree tops. As we rounded a bend in the river, the landscape was contrastingly tranquil, with softly calling Song Thrush and a lonely-sounding Bullfinch. 

Then again, all Bullfinches sound lonely... Maybe if they lightened up a little they would have more friends.

   Along the next section of river, the ground up from the boggy floodplain is on a rather steep incline and whippy Alder scrub makes the going tougher.

More Redwing zipped back and forth, busily foraging in the dense scrub and a Green Woodpecker spooked us with a loud yaffle, erupting up out of the grass.

A the furthest point downstream, just outside of our allowed survey time, we were treated to the sight of a Kingfisher perching directly in front of us and a small group of Roe Deer trotting off around the corner. (Even if noted outside of the survey time, we enter all of the day's species into iRecord.)

A final word of advice: before beginning your linear transect of 3km over difficult terrain, do check you have your car keys with you and they are not locked in the car all the way t'other end.

Fieldfare departs LGW

Species total: 32

• Blackbird
• Blue Tit
• Bullfinch
• Carrion Crow
• Chaffinch
• Common Buzzard
• Coot
• Dunnock
• Fieldfare
• Goldcrest
• Goldfinch
• Great Spotted Woodpecker
• Great Tit
• Green Woodpecker
• Herring Gull
• Jackdaw
• Jay
• Kingfisher
• Long-tailed Tit
• Magpie
• Meadow Pipit
• Mistle Thrush
• Moorhen
• Pied Wagtail
• Redwing
• Reed Bunting
• Robin
• Song Thrush
• Starling
• Water Rail
• Wood Pigeon
• Wren

Gatsbees B-Log: Autumn 2015

With a mild beginning to October, we were able to make a final check of a couple of the colonies

and found a nuc (nucleus), which was queenless. It should have been strong enough to survive the winter, even though it was half the size of a full colony...

but the queen had died and in the centre of the comb the bees had constructed a queen cell, far too late for the production of a new one.

This is a butler cage, designed to introduce a new queen into a queenless colony and minimising the chance of them killing her. (The 50p is to give you an idea of the size, not how much they cost!)

She is placed into the cage and a piece of newspaper is wrapped around the open end and secured with an elastic band to give her somewhere to hide while they get used to her and feed her.

We then put it into the hive between the frames of brood, where the bees would expect to find her. At this time of year there will be no issues about them accepting her as they know they won’t survive without one!

Ilex aquifolium

The Holly and...

  Hedera helix

the Ivy. A fantastic winter plant for bees with irresistible flowers for bumbles, honeybees, wasps and hoverflies, and also juicy berries for the birds.

The next problem was in the hive on the right, also a small colony of 7 frames, where the queen was poor at egg laying and putting the colony at risk, so I took her out.

We opened up the bigger colony in the hive on the left and put a large sheet of newspaper over the frames of bees, covered by a wire queen excluder to stop it blowing away.

After dark, when all the bees were at home and clustered together, we lifted the whole hive, excluding the floor onto the main colony.

Over the next week, the bees in both hives chewed their way through the paper, gradually integrating smells and feeding each other...

Happy bees!

This visitor to the hive is a harmless Havestman (or Harvest-person?). Rachel says it is a type of arachnid, but not a spider.

(Leiobunum rotundum) female

All this mixing up of colonies causes a few battles on the landing board but the bees, which look like they are being attacked, will survive by being submissive by putting their heads between their legs and sweeping the floor with their tongues.

27th October; pollen still coming in by the leg load, but I'm not sure from which flower.

I’ve left enough honey (I hope) for the winter, but gave some back on the wax cappings from honey extraction, for the bees to clean up and store.

Ah, yes, honey. Extracting honey is my least favourite job, but I will get round to explaining its finer details one of these days…..

And so they close up any gaps which they don’t want with wax or propolis and go to bed. Although it’s now December, there are still stragglers finding traces of honey in my bee shed (where I thought it would be safe by now).

Can you spot the queen?

A really tricky ‘spot the queen’ photo last time but they do like to make it difficult; she was just disappearing round the top side of the frame with just her long abdomen showing.

If then, you think you may enjoy the ‘gentle’ art of beekeeping, you can join your local Association for theory courses, which usually begin in January. Get in touch with the British Beekeepers Association on the net for your nearest contact and they will be delighted to hear from you.

Local associations generally run practical sessions in an apiary from around April to September, so would be happy to let you hang around and practice all summer if you don’t feel confident, or if your garden isn’t suitable for you to keep bees there.

If still not for you, then perhaps you could grow plants with single flowers in your garden or in pots next year, which are easier for the bees to work. They don’t have to be native like this Green Alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens), but there’s always a corner for something insect friendly, whatever the growing conditions and whatever the time of year.

 Robin (Erithacus rubecula)  

So, that’s it for this extraordinary year; many thanks for your time and comments, it has been a pleasure sharing the girls with you all, amazing creatures that they are.

Big hug and a special thank you to Rachel and Tom too.

Gillybee X