Page 9 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #06

WILD JUNE

ALSO LOOK
Q THRIFT
IN THE PINK OUT FOR…
Salty sea air is the kiss of death for most
plants… but not thrift. This tough-as-nails BABY BATS
wildflower is also a metallophyte, meaning it Many female bats
can tolerate high levels of lead and other heavy will be giving birth
metals. Its flattened leaves create attractive to their tiny single
green cushions, which sprout pompom-like pups this month. The
pink blooms on long, wiry stalks in early size and location of
summer. Thrift forms carpets on clifs, rocky nursery roosts depend
beaches and saltmarshes, especially in the on species, but incluude
north and west, and its extreme hardiness has hollow trees, roof
made it a popular rockery plant. spaces and crevices
FIND OUT MORE Learn more about British flora in stone structures
at www.plantlife.org.uk such as bridges.
Adult male bats
usually roost separately.

HUMMER SUMMER?
June 2017 was a record for
migratory hummingbird
hawkmoths in UK gardens,
according to the BTO
Garden BirdWatch survey.
During warm weather and
a southerly airflow, keep an
eye out for these day-flying
moths hovering next to
flowers. Buddleia and red
valerian are favourites.

TOUSLED BLOOMS
June is peak season for
Q YELLOWHAMMER ragged robin, a bright
pink wildflower of damp
HIDE AND SEEK grassland that sports
“Let us stoop/And seek its nest” wrote John uniquely shredded, messy-
Clare in The Yellowhammer’s Nest, some looking petals, like a bad
time in the 1820s. The ‘peasant poet’ spent case of ‘morning hair’. It is
many hours observing nesting birds, and a nectar source for many
the Springwatch team will need the same butterflies, from rarities like
age-old fieldcraft and intuition to locate a the swallowtail (opposite)
yellowhammer nest for this year’s viewers, to many of the brown and
since the female expertly hides her beautifully white butterflies.
woven grass cup low down in hedgerows.
Her canary-coloured mate divides his time SPOTTY SPLENDOUR
between helping her feed the chicks on insects We usually associate
and delivering his wheezily repetitive summer redshanks with winter
song from atop a nearby hawthorn or elder. saltmarshes and mudflats,
TOP TIP Watch a BTO video on how to identify but should also admire their
buntings: www.bto.org/about-birds/bird-id richly spotted breeding
plumage.Though numbers
nesting in lowlands continue
to fall, there’s some rare
good news: redshanks
now breed at
WWTLondon
Wetland
Centre
– the closest to
the centre of the
m TWEET OF THE DAY capital for a century.
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/tweetoftheday