Page 8 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #05

WILD SPRING

Q RINGED PLOVER
BEACHCOMBER
These smart little waders are much
in evidence on Britain’s coasts in
spring, when resident birds are joined
by many others en route from winter
homes in the Mediterranean and West
Africa to breeding grounds in Iceland,
Greenland and Canada. But despite their
bold markings, ringed plovers seem to
vanish on pebble and shingle beaches
– their preferred habitat. Also on the
move now are their scarcer relatives, little
ringed plovers, which sport yellow eye-
rings and legs and are mostly seen inland.
FIND OUT MORE Learn more about waders at
www.wadertales.wordpress.com

Q BLUEBELL
TRUE BLUE

“You don’t need to be a botanist to feel
uplifted by the mist of bluebells tracing
the woodland floor,”reflects Peter
Marren in his lovely new book Chasing
the Ghost. But like a‘gateway drug’,
late April and May’s carpets of bluebells
might turn you into one. It is wildflower
spectacles like these that tempt us onto
our hands and knees to look closer and
learn the diference between petal and
sepal, stigma and style, bud and bract.
FIND OUT MORE Listen to a BBC Radio 3
Essay about the meaning of bluebells:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09c0gfw

UK HIGHLIGHTS
K

The essential wildlife events to enjoy this month, compiled by Ben Hoare.

P over: O ver Smart; k ngfisher: Er c Medard; ee s: N ck Upton/NPL; s ow worm: S mon Booth;
Q EUROPEAN EEL
MASS MIGRATION
pasque flower & bluebells: Dav d Chapman; newt: Jason Steel; swallow: Dav dT p ng
Tiny young eels are massing in the Severn,
Thames and a few other estuaries ready
to surge upstream into fresh water. These
thread-like juveniles, known as glass eels for
their transparency, have spent two or three
years drifting east from the Sargasso Sea
where they hatched. The big push comes at
night on the highest ‘spring’ tides around the
full moon. Weirs and sluice gates block this
nocturnal armada, but clever eel passes and
catch-and-release projects are helping the
migrating fish to swim past these barriers.
FIND OUT MORE Learn more about European eel
conservation at www.sustainableeelgroup.org/en

8 BBC Wildlife Spring 2018