Page 9 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #02

WILD FEBRUARY

ALSO LOOK
Q ALDER
CATKIN CASCADE OUT FOR…
Alders like wet feet, usually growing beside water
or in soggy, flood-prone woods where they do an FIRST FLOWERS
important job fighting erosion. Whole trees can By February lesser celandine,
appear red-purple due to the catkins festooning a member of the buttercup
their branches. There are both male and female family, should be its unfurling
catkins. Hardened female ones lingering from its first bright yellow blooms.
previous seasons look more like ‘pine cones’. This It can be abundant in urban
year’s developing catkins are short and stubby if areas – often around street
female, or much longer if male. As spring arrives, trees, in cemeteries or along
the latter open to reveal pretty yellow insides. paths – as well as in the
GET INVOLVED Download the free Tree ID app countryside. The
at www.woodlandtrust.org.uk flowers are popular
with bumblebees
and flies.

CATCH ME IF
YOU CAN
One non-native
species making its
presence felt this month
is the grey squirrel. In late
winter, males chase females
up, down and around trees,
hoping to mate. Listen too for
their loud, sneeze-like calls.

BUNTING BOOM
This year’s Winterwatch is
reporting on one of Britain’s
big farmland conservation
Q GREENBOTTLE success stories: the cirl
bunting comeback in Devon
STIRRING INTO LIFE and Cornwall. Winter is often
The sudden, welcome warmth of February a good time to spot small
sunshine can rouse a variety of insects that flocks of these handsome
overwinter as adults, frequently including birds at RSPB Labrador Bay,
greenbottles. Give these flies a proper look. near Teignmouth, Devon.
Their huge, conker-coloured eyes and brilliant
m TWEET OF THE DAY bronzy-emerald thorax, with its contrasting black BOXING CLEVER
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/tweetoftheday ‘acrostichal’ bristles, are simply stunning close-up. Within a month, tits and
Greenbottles are as likely indoors as out, happily other garden birds will be
buzzing around your kitchen or living room. singing and looking for
Fermenting food waste, compost heaps and nest-sites. So there’s not
farmyard dung invariably attract them too. long left to put up nestboxes:
FIND OUT MORE www.buglife.org.uk National Nestbox Week
(14–21 February) is a great
opportunity to get involved.

PARROT FASHION
Jolly green giant of winter
gr
een

,
s
eder
a
birdfeeders, or a green
or
c
menace? Either way, ring-
neckeed parakeets seem
to be hhere to stay in
south-east England.
Numbbers shot up
1,455 per cent in
1995––2015, according
to the latest Breeding
Bird SSurvey report:
www.bto.org/bbs
b