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Nature Watch

Nature Watch

Storks visit Jelsa!

Published in Nature Watch

On September 17th 2017, two storks touched down in Jelsa.

Storks in Jelsa, September 2017.
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Birdwatch, June - July 2017

Published in Nature Watch

The summer months were intensely hot. By June 12th there was very little about. On a trip to the pond that morning I found that the biggest area was about to evaporate later that day– there was a tiny little pool with the remaining fish all gasping. Equally I saw a Cormorant, probably stocking up with an easy source of food.

Scops Owl
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Birdwatch, August - September 2017

Published in Nature Watch

Well summer is over, birding-wise, and during the last three months, hopefully, birds have bred successfully on the island. I have certainly seen evidence of this, particularly recently, with good numbers of House Sparrows all around. Also frequently during the summer months I have seen birds carrying food to nests.

Two Storks holidaying in Jelsa, September 2017.
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The Bee Hotel: Encouraging Wildlife in our Garden

Published in Nature Watch

Having offered hospitality to a young swallow family earlier in the year, Marion and Zzdravko decided to extend their facilities to welcome bees.

Honey bee
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Birdwatch & Insects, Autumn-Winter 2017

Published in Nature Watch

Steve Jones rounds off the year, puzzled by the absence of some birds he expected to see.

Common Scarlet Darter Dragonfly
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Birdwatch, January - February 2018

Published in Nature Watch

Well as I type this on March 1st looking out at my bird feeders amidst heavy snowfall, the birding calendar tells me Spring is on its way.

Kingfisher, January 2018
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Birdwatch March-April 2018

Published in Nature Watch

Steve reports from Dol on the unsettled spring weather, and the welcome bird arrivals on Hvar.

Spring-time and the Golden Oriole is back.
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Nature Watch, May 2018

Published in Nature Watch

Steve Jones, ever on the watch for birds, has some exciting sightings in May. 

Roller (zlatovrana)
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Bee-Eaters, one of Hvar's prime attractions

Published in Nature Watch

Bee-eaters (Merops apiaster) are brightly coloured, exquisite birds.

Bee-Eater in flight.
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Eco Environment News feeds

  • Meet the scientists on a new wildlife frontier: the mysterious sounds of the underground

    More than 50% of the planet’s species live in the soil, but only a fraction have been identified – so far

    Read more: No birdsong, no water in the creek, no beating wings: how a haven for nature fell silent

    The sound of an earthworm is a distinctive rasping and scrunching. Ants sound like the soothing patter of rain. A passing, tunnelling vole makes a noise like a squeaky dog’s toy repeatedly being chewed.

    On a spring day at Rothamsted Research, an agricultural research institution in Herefordshire, singing skylarks and the M1 motorway are competing for the airways. But the attention here is on the soundscapes underfoot: a rich ecosystem with its own alien sounds. More than half of the planet’s species live in the soil, and we are just starting to tune into what they are up to. Beetle larvae, millipedes, centipedes and woodlice have other sound signatures, and scientists are trying to decipher which sounds come from which creatures.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘Reprehensible retreat’: fury as Scottish ministers scrap carbon emissions pledge

    Climate campaigners complain of short-termism as country abandons target to cut carbon emissions by 75% by 2030

    Climate campaigners have accused Scottish ministers of being “inept” and “short-termist” after they scrapped Scotland’s target to cut carbon emissions by 75% by 2030.

    Màiri McAllan, the Scottish net zero secretary, confirmed her government had abandoned that target and would also drop legally binding annual targets on reducing carbon emissions, after damning criticism from a UK advisory committee.

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  • Clean-up of Indian coal-fired power plants ‘could have saved 720,000 lives’

    Researchers say early deaths may have been avoided over 10-year period if technology installed

    Research has estimated the health impacts from the coal-fired power plants that operate across India.

    Six hundred coal power plants generate more than 70% of India’s electricity. Despite regulations passed in 2015, fewer than 5% of these plants operate with modern systems to clean up air pollutants from their chimneys. In China, 95% of coal-fired power plants were fitted with clean-up technologies by 2013.

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  • Letting grass grow long boosts butterfly numbers, UK study proves

    Analysis of 60o gardens shows wilder lawns feed caterpillars and create breeding habitat

    Good news for lazy gardeners: one labour-saving tweak could almost double the number of butterflies in your garden, according to a new scientific study – let the grass grow long.

    In recent years nature lovers have been extolling the benefits of relaxed lawn maintenance with the growing popularity of the #NoMowMay campaign. Now an analysis of six years of butterfly sightings across 600 British gardens has provided the first scientific evidence that wilder lawns boost butterfly numbers.

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  • Fossil of ‘largest snake to have ever existed’ found in western India

    Scientists estimate Vasuki indicus was up to 15m long, weighed a tonne and would have constricted its prey

    Fossil vertebrae unearthed in a mine in western India are the remains of one of the largest snakes that ever lived, a monster estimated at up to 15 metres in length – longer than a T rex.

    Scientists have recovered 27 vertebrae from the snake, including a few still in the same position as they would have been when the reptile was alive. They said the snake, which they named Vasuki indicus, would have looked like a large python and would not have been venomous.

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  • Country diary: These catkins reveals the strange beauty of evolution | Phil Gates

    Wolsingham, Weardale: Pause for a moment on these colourful stamens and the method of wind pollination seems incredible. Somehow, it works

    From a distance, the pavement seemed to be crawling with enormous caterpillars, but these are unripe male catkins at my feet, torn down by stormy weather from a Lombardy poplar’s twigs 40ft above my head. On a still day, I’d need to botanise with binoculars to appreciate their beauty; now, high winds have presented me with a gift of the most colourful catkins in our tree flora. They are as long and broad as my fingers, densely packed spirals of purple stamens: unexploded pollen bombs.

    So much pollen. Counting stamens and estimating their contents, there must be at least 100,000 pollen grains per catkin, and there are still plenty left on the tree. On a high pollen count day, enough to make a hay fever sufferer’s eyes water.

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  • ‘We can’t hunt or fish’: the villages in Ecuador’s Amazon surrounded by abandoned explosives

    In 2002, high explosives were laid in oil wells across 20 sq km of forest. The firm has gone but the pentolite remains, despite a court ruling, putting lives and the ecosystem at risk

    Living on the banks of the Bobonaza River, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Indigenous communities in Sarayaku have always lived in harmony with nature. The rainforest, says Patricia Gualinga, is a sacred, conscious being.

    So when an Argentinian company was allowed to place a huge amount of high explosive around the rainforest to prospect for oil, the local Kichwa people fought back and eventually took their case to an international court. More than a decade after winning their legal battle, however, the explosives remain strewn around the community’s territory.

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  • We found unhealthy pesticide levels in 20% of US produce – here’s what you need to know

    Consumer Reports recently conducted its most comprehensive review of pesticides in 59 US fruits and vegetables. Here the organization shares what it found

    When it comes to healthy eating, fruits and vegetables reign supreme. But along with all their vitamins, minerals and other nutrients can come something else: an unhealthy dose of dangerous pesticides.

    Though using chemicals to control bugs, fungi and weeds helps farmers grow the food we need, it’s been clear since at least the 1960s that some chemicals also carry unacceptable health risks. And although certain notorious pesticides, such as DDT, have been banned in the US, government regulators have been slow to act on others. Even when a dangerous chemical is removed from the market, chemical companies and growers sometimes just start using other options that may be as dangerous.

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  • Penguins in the pond, kiwi in the back yard: how a city brought back its birds

    As nature falls silent in most cities around the world, New Zealand’s capital has been transformed by the sound of native birds returning to the dawn chorus

    Read more: No birdsong, no water in the creek, no beating wings: how a haven for nature fell silent

    Some time in the pre-dawn darkness, the commotion starts. From her bed, Danae Mossman hears the noise building: loud romantic liaisons, vomiting, squeals, the sound of bodies hitting the pool at full tilt.

    Things get particularly loud between midnight and 4am, Mossman says, “when they are getting busy”.

    A kororā, or little penguin, colony live under Danae Mossman’s house – and show no signs of wanting to leave

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  • Goodbye cod, hello herring: why putting a different fish on your dish will help the planet

    In the first of a new series, we look at why people reject so much of the bountiful catches from our seas in favour of the same few species, mostly imported – and how to change that

    Perched on a quay in the Cornish port of Falmouth is Pysk fishmongers, where Giles and Sarah Gilbert started out with a dream to supply locally caught seafood to the town. Their catch comes mainly from small boats that deliver a glittering array of local fish: gleaming red mullets, iridescent mackerels, spotted dabs and bright white scallops, still snapping in their shells.

    Occasionally, they will get a treasured haul of local common prawns – stripy, smaller and sweeter than the frozen, imported varieties in UK supermarkets. So, when customers come into the shop asking for prawns, Giles Gilbert presents “these bouncing jack-in-a-boxes” with a flourish, hoping to tempt buyers with the fresh, live shellfish.

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