So much has been written about the ‘insect apocalypse’; so many books, papers and articles are appearing all the time, that it can be difficult to make sense of it all. Unfortunately, and although there are a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ and caveats, things do look rather alarming, particularly when we take a global…
When I came across this melee of seabirds, just off the East Pier in Scarborough, I was a bit confused at first about what was going on! There were large numbers of juvenile Herring gulls taking off and landing in the water. What were they doing? After a while, I realised that there were a…
ants / bees / Beetles / Insects / Morphology / physiology
Insect cuticles are protected from drying out and abrasion by a thin layer of waxes and cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs). These epicuticular waxes are produced by secretory cells which lie beneath the epidermis (see below) The importance of this epicuticular layer in preventing the insect from drying out has been known for a long time, but…
Animal behaviour / Evolution / Insects / Mimicry / Odonata
In this blog I consider why there are different female colour forms (or morphs) in some damselflies, such as the Common Bluet, and briefly discuss some of the theories which attempt to explain their existence. In Enallagma species (Coenagrionidae) – called Bluets – males usually start searching for mates before females have appeared. Some males…
Ailsa Craig rises up out of the Firth of Clyde, rounded and rugged, a gigantic lump of rock hard granite. I had the pleasure of sailing past this small island, 1 .2 km in diameter and home to over 35,000 pairs of northern gannets (Morus bassanus) last month, on a short, three-day cruise out of Liverpool. Ailsa…
Older readers may remember the hilarious sketch by Monty Python where they play four Yorkshiremen trying to outdo each other in terms of how poor and deprived they were whilst growing up! If not, here are a couple of versions of the sketches: For some reason, I was reminded of this sketch whilst photographing this…
Originally posted on Ray Cannon's travel blog:
Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) 6 June 2021 Beds, UK. Photo by Raymond JC Cannon Many types of dabbling ducks have iridescent wing patches called specula (singular: speculum). These flashes are usually blue or green, although the colour can vary somewhat according to the angle and the lighting conditions.…
There’s a lot going on inside buttercups if you look closely. Well maybe not all buttercups! But if you keep an eye open, all sorts of things turn up, as I have blogged about before: Buttercup bedfellows. Today I came across a new bedfellow to add to the list: Orange spot percier (Pammene aurana). This…
Mark Cocker’s Country diary piece in the Guardian this week, 1 June 2021 (‘the most seductive shade of green‘) got me thinking about leaves, trees and colours. As Mark reminded us, leaves look green because chlorophyll molecules absorb the red end of the visible light spectrum in photosynthesis, and the unused green light is reflected. Counterintuitively perhaps, they are green…
This lovely fly has recently invaded Europe. Will it fly across the Channel and establish itself in the UK? Is it already here? It is spreading widely on the Continent, so perhaps it is just a matter of time before it pops up in the UK? I could find no records of it, but it…
Darwin’s other big idea (in addition to the theory of evolution by natural selection) was sexual selection. “We are, however, here concerned only with that kind of selection, which I have called sexual selection. This depends on the advantage which certain individuals have over other individuals of the same sex and species, in exclusive relation…
We all need a place to call home. Somewhere where we feel safe and protected. Where we can chatter away in peace and security. Sparrows are no exception! House sparrows have declined markedly since the 1970s, although numbers have increased slightly in the past decade. There are a number of possible reasons (See Link 1),…
The fine weather earlier this week – at the end of March 2021 – saw the emergence of some butterflies, Peacocks and Small Tortoiseshells, from their winter hibernation. Although they are hunkered down somewhere over the cold months, you would probably never find them (unless they are inside the trunk of an old tree), as…
The colour yellow seems almost synonymous with Easter, perhaps associated with the coming of sunny days? Or egg yolks and chicks? Daffodils seem to express this time of year better than any other flower I think.😊 In Narcissus flowers like daffodils, the yellow-to-orange range of colours are produced by carotenoid and flavonoid pigments. Different types…
It can be very hard to tell apart male and female domestic pigeons, also called rock doves, Columba livia. There are differences, for example in the size of body, neck, and legs, the shape of nasal knobs, head, forehead, and the degree of iridescence, but there is great deal of overlap in all of these features,…
