Birds and Insects Autumn-Winter 2015

Reports from Dol, many thanks Steve!

Kestrel, Jelsa Kestrel, Jelsa Photo: Michael Southall

My bird watching sadly has been rather limited this year, the intention is to make more detailed notes in 2016 - or just wishful thinking.

I had a friend came over in September for a week and I think he listed 29 species in that time excluding Bee-eaters which had gone by then. Saw my last Swift on 27th October, two months later than we would have in the UK. My friend specialises in Moths and set up a couple of traps in my garden for a week. He was delighted with the quantity and species. Probably about 200 different species which I have pictures of - unfortunately I am not knowledgeable enough to identify any.

Humming-bird hawk moth.

The humming-bird hawk moth is spectacular in flight, and safely inconspicuous when at rest.

 
Humming-bird hawkmoth. Photo Michael Southall

I erected a bird table about three months ago and was rather disappointed by the lack of interest in it. However in the last three weeks it has been a source of food for about 10 Blue Tits / some Great Tits and a Robin.  There clearly is enough natural food for several other species.

Blue-tit at the bird table. Photo Steve Jones

Blackcaps are feeding on pomegranate tree nearby, the occasional Wren pops into the garden and numerous Chaffinch feed off the ground in a neighbours field. Sova Usara calls regularly but seeing it is a little more difficult although some super views in August on an old ruin next door. Saw a male and female Cirl Bunting on some Blackberry bushes nearby on Monday/Tuesday this week.

Last week was seeing Black Redstart/Redstart ( I thought Redstart but two friends think Black Redstart so we will go with them - it is a female and they are both pretty similar). It sort of makes sense as I was positive I saw a male on roof briefly the other week.

redstart
Redstart. Photo Steve Jones

I had two or three trips to the airfield in the summer/late summer and found a few species there. Managed to get a reasonable picture of a young Golden Plover which was a surprise to me. Having seen them in flocks on Dartmoor in the Winter, I have never seen one solitary bird. I also saw Yellow Wagtails. There was a solitary Heron at the small pond near the airport, but I was expecting more, as it is the only source of water I know of. Blue Rock Thrush nested nearby which solved a problem I had had for a while, I was familiar with the call over several years, but hadn't managed to tie it up to the bird until now. Also Nightjars were heard most evenings.

Olive picking yielded an unexpected treasure

A great find whilst picking Olives: this caterpillar, which I estimate to be about 10cm long X 1cm wide, later becomes the deathshead hawkmoth ( I didn't know that, but am reliably informed - a fantastic sight and so well camouflaged).

Deathshead Hawkmoth caterpillar. Photo Steve Jones

I will endeavour to detail more next year - you mentioned hearing a Cuckoo on April 24th, which is interesting, as that is around the same time that they reach Dartmoor. There has been an interesting project in the UK for the past 3 years now, involving radio tagging cuckoos to track their progress and whereabouts. Really fascinating. I am wondering whether or not they actually breed here, or just pass through. And what is their host bird if they breed here?

Steve, Dol, December 19th 2015

I have been a bit disappointed by the lack of birds in the winter, I was expecting far more, but pleased my bird table is attracting some of the more common speicies. Did see four Buzzards conveniently perched on four pylons on my way into Stari Grad this morning.

Steve, Dol, December 23rd 2015

I went off bird watching early Xmas morning  - over to the airfield and the pond nearby.

Pied wagtail, December 25th 2015. Photo Steve Jones

Saw the usual Heron and 2 Pied Wagtail.

Heron, 28th December 2015. Photo Steve Jones

Saw several flocks of Chaffinch in trees (overnight roosts perhaps) between there and Stari Grad. Up to 60 or so on one tree and a couple of instances of similar driving back to Dol.

Flock of goldfinch in flight. Photo Steve Jones

Another pair of Cirl Buntings down near the electricity sub-station at Stari Grad. Several Buzzards but all too distant to get decent pictures. I have noticed Great Tits in the last two days are actually calling now.

Steve, Dol, December 27th 2015

For more of Steve's beautiful nature pictures, see his personal pages: Bird Pictures on Hvar 2017, and Butterflies of Hvar

You are here: Home Nature Watch Birds and Insects Autumn-Winter 2015

Eco Environment News feeds

  • Richard Tice says voters will turn on government unless energy bills fall

    Labour will back down on its policies aimed at achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions, the deputy leader of the Reform has predicted.

    Richard Tice, the energy spokesperson for Reform and MP for Boston and Skegness, told the Guardian his party would withdraw from the 2015 Paris agreement that tries to limit global heating to 1.5C.

    Continue reading...

  • A slew of global leaders met in the south of France to discuss the future of the oceans. There was ‘momentum’ and ‘enthusiasm’, but there were critical voices too

    The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope … and we are all in the same boat.” So said Jacques Cousteau, the French explorer, oceanographer and pioneering film-maker, who notably pivoted from merely sharing his underwater world to sounding the alarm over its destruction.

    Half a century later, David Attenborough, a year shy of his 100th birthday, followed Cousteau’s trajectory. In the naturalist’s acclaimed new film, Ocean, which highlights the destructive fishing practice of bottom trawling, he says he has come to the realisation that the “most important place on Earth is not on land but at sea”.

    Continue reading...

  • Among other concerns, the US military parade will produce as much pollution as created to heat 300 homes for a year

    Donald Trump’s military parade this weekend will bring thousands of troops out to march, while dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers roll down the streets and fighter jets hum overhead.

    The event has prompted concern about rising autocracy in the US. It will also produce more than 2m kilograms of planet-heating pollution – equivalent to the amount created by producing of 67m plastic bags or by the energy used to power about 300 homes in one year, according to a review by the progressive thinktank Institute for Policy Studies and the Guardian.

    Continue reading...

  • Continue reading...

  • Welfare of sows confined to farrowing crates was compromised and they displayed signs of extreme stress, experts say

    The use of restrictive pens to temporarily house pregnant pigs in the UK severely compromises their welfare, can traumatise them and should be banned, experts have said.

    Analysis by Animal Equality UK of footage collected from a farm in Devon showed that three pregnant sows in farrowing crates spent more than 90% of their time lying down, with one not standing up at all for a day. On average, between them they bit the bars (a sign of extreme stress) more than once an hour.

    Continue reading...

  • When historian Galo Ramón uncovered a long-forgotten pre-Incan water system in Ecuador, he set about restoring it, and helped transform the landscape and livelihoods

    One day in 1983, while studying a hand-drawn map from 1792 of his home town in Ecuador, Galo Ramón, a historian, came across a dispute between a landowner and two local Indigenous communities, the Coyana and the Catacocha. The boundary conflict involved an ancient lagoon, depicted on the map.

    “The drawing depicted a lagoon brimming with rainwater,” says Ramón. Ravines were depicted forming below the high-altitude lagoon, indicating that it supplied watersheds further down – contrary to the typical flow where a watershed feeds into the lagoon.

    Continue reading...

  • Burbage, Derbyshire:National parks and the countless marvels they contain should be as they were originally intended – free to all

    There’s a tiger burning brightly in front of me – not in the forests of the night, but on a Derbyshire moor, among the heather and bilberry, and in warm sunshine. It isn’t orange and black, but an iridescent green, and I need to hunker down to reach its level.

    The green tiger beetle is widespread in Britain, and at least to the ants and caterpillars that it predates, it is every bit as threatening as the big cat immortalised by William Blake. Magnified, its fearful symmetry becomes more apparent, its mouth parts ferocious, the dandyish purple of its elegant legs more richly obvious.

    Continue reading...

  • Mark Lynas has spent decades pushing for action on climate emissions but now says nuclear war is even greater threat

    Climate breakdown is usually held up as the biggest, most urgent threat humans pose to the future of the planet today.

    But what if there was another, greater, human-made threat that could snuff out not only human civilisation, but practically the entire biosphere, in the blink of an eye?

    Continue reading...

  • From fungi-based wall panels to 3D printed bricks made of seaweed, biomaterials are increasingly being used in construction. But how close are they to a home near you?

    The average person might simply see green goop, but when Ben Hankamer looks at microalgae, he sees the building blocks of the future.

    Prof Hankamer, from the Institute of Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland, is one of a growing number of people around the world exploring ways living organisms and their products can be integrated into our built environment – from algae-based bricks to straw or fungi wall panels, and render made from oyster shells.

    Continue reading...

  • Already controversial because of extra fixtures and Fifa involvement, the new tournament in the US is likely to be played in temperatures above 30C

    Across this weekend, the US National Weather Service is predicting “moderate” heat risk for Miami and Los Angeles. With temperatures likely to exceed 30C, the agency warns “most individuals sensitive to heat” will be affected, a group that contains those “exercising or doing strenuous activity outdoors during the heat of the day”. This weekend is also when the Club World Cup begins.

    When Lionel Messi and Inter Miami kick off the tournament on Saturday night against Al Ahly of Egypt it will be 8pm in Miami and, although the humidity is predicted to be high, the day’s peak temperatures will have passed. Paris Saint-Germain and Atlético Madrid, however, will play under the full height of the California sun on Sunday, with their Group B fixture a midday kick-off at the famously uncovered Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds