Snippets

News from the Bridgend Group of the

Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales - July 2015

Issue 3

Inside A Pain in the Schmidt, Wildlife Wobble, Photosynthesis, Reflections on Life Ancient & Modern, Nature Notes, Solitary , La Grande Briere, Loving the Lamprey, They Were All Yellow, 21st Centaury Nature Writing

1 50 Shades What’s inside

Anon.

Parc Slip Stunners

The Parc Slip Water Rails have been putting on a good show this year. Mike Clark was on hand (as always) to capture this great image to share with us.

2 A pain in the Schmidt!

If you have been stung by a wasp, you will know that it hurts, but maybe, just maybe, you wondered just how much it hurt and how much the bites and stings of other hurt (or maybe not!). During the 1980’s, a man named Justin Schmidt set himself the tough task of ranking the stings and bites of 78 different species of insects, in order of pain, in the name of science! Now, that's dedication! After a painful period of prodding, nudging and teasing insects to bite him, Schmidt came up with the ‘Schmidt Pain Index’. To help us get our heads around what it actually felt like he numerically awarded each bite/sting (a 5 point ranking from 0-4). A ranking of 0 was given where the failed to pierce his skin, the most painful sting being given a 4. Now, this is helpful in itself for any naturalist with masochistic tendencies but it fails to get across what it actual felt like. Fortunately for us, Mr Schmidt saw this flaw and added a nice little description of the pain involved. So, here follows a description of the performance of 10 of his test ‘subjects’ -

- Duration short. Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. As if a tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm. - Duration 2-5 minutes. Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag pile carpet & reaching for the light switch. - Duration 4-6 minutes. A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek. - Duration 3-4 minutes. Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door. - Duration 4-10 minutes. Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue. - Duration 4-10 minutes. Like a match head that flips off and burns on your skin. - Duration 1-8 hours. Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail. - Duration 5-15 minutes. Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut. - Duration 3 minutes. Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath. Duration 12-24 hours. Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.

3 The Wildlife Wobble

On the 15th of August, the Bridgend Group will embark on a ‘Wildlife Wobble’ along the Glamorgan Heritage Coast. This is the first of what we hope will become an annual event for the group with the emphasis on socialising and making new friends (and catching up with old ones!). We will be meeting at the The Horseshoes in Marcross, Vale of Glamorgan at 12:00 then wandering around the coast path and quiet country lanes, enjoying the views and keeping a lookout for the local wildlife – see pics (regular buses available from Bridgend/Llantwit Major).

The route conveniently passes some lovely country pubs (The Horseshoes, The Plough, The Lamb & Flag, The Star, The Fox & Hounds and The Pelican) at which we will be stopping along the way for refreshments. We will be passing through the villages of Wick and St Brides Major so if the walk is too long for you, you can finish at any point and make your own way home.

We are aiming to make it to the Pelican for around 7pm which is next to the bus stop where you can travel back to Bridgend/Llantwit Major.

We would encourage members to travel by local transport (timetable) but for those wishing to travel by car parking is available at Nash Point or Monk Nash. If you are feeling energetic, why not park at Southerndown and walk along the Coast to meet us at The Shoes for 12? Hope to see you there!

Overheard @Parc Slip

Good news about the Dipper, wasn’t it ? Yes, excellent news, how big was it? What do you mean? Well, was it a Big Dipper or a skinny dipper? (you had to be there!)

Anon 4 Photosynthesis

Back to school?...... Please do not stop reading here because this process is very interesting and can give us another insight into the internal workings of plants which are very familiar to us.

The mechanism of photosynthesis took centuries to be unravelled …eg 1643 it was discovered that plants need water for this process; 1760 that plants produce oxygen; 1796 plants take up carbon dioxide and 1845 need chlorophyll to trap light energy, , we arrive at this summary.

This just summarises photosynthesis but there are dozens of chemical steps involved. They were worked out in the 1950s by an American called Melvin Calvin. It is known as the Calvin cycle. He received the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1961 for his work. We now know of three types of photosynthesis used by plants.

These represent 95% of the world’s plant biomass. They are commonest in temperate regions eg deciduous and evergreen trees, and the crop plants wheat and barley. Most British plants are C3. Why C3? This is because Calvin found that the first substance made in photosynthesis- on the road to sugar- was a chemical called pyruvate and this contains three carbon atoms, hence C3.

Now to a problem. To take in carbon dioxide into the leaves, plants have to open leaf pores in the DAY. This causes water vapour to be lost. This is usually not a problem if there is ground water, but could be a problem if the plant lives in an arid environment, so scientists have discovered that some plants have evolved to be :-

This was discovered in the Crassula plant family. But it is now known in 40 other plant families eg Cacti, bromeliads, epiphytic orchids. 7% of the world’s species are CAM plants and they are mainly from the hot, bright, dry desert areas.

These plants open their pores at NIGHT and close them during the day when water loss would be high. They take in carbon dioxide at night and store it as a chemical called malate. This is an acid compound hence the name Crassulacean acid metabolism… CAM .During the day, malate is broken down to make carbon dioxide and the plants can make sugar in their leaves with their pores closed so there is no water loss.

A scientist in 1815 had noted that when he tasted the leaves of his succulent plant , they tasted bitter in the morning but sweet by noon! Now we know why.

( I have never done the tasting test.!)

The Pineapple is a CAM plant

5 Two CAM plants in Britain are from the Crassula family are Biting Stonecrop or Wall Pep- per (Sedum acre) common in sandy rocky dry places and Navelwort (Umbilicus ruprestris) common on walls in Western Britain.

3)

This group of plants is the smallest, just 0.4% of plant species approx. 260,000. These are the photosynthe- sis champions and perform best at very high temper- atures. It is no surprise that, because they are so efficient, they are grown as food crops, eg sugar cane, maize, sorghum and millet.

Like the CAM plants, they open their leaf pores at NIGHT and close them in the day. The first chemical made from the carbon dioxide this time has four carbon atoms in it. - hence called C4 plants. The internal anatomy of C4 plants had puzzled botanists as there were unusual bundles of cells not seen in C3 or CAM plants. They discovered that they concentrat- ed the C4 chemical in these areas and when it broke down to give carbon dioxide in the day it was up to a hundred times as concentrated -hence higher photo-

Section of C3 leaf (most temperate plants) and section of C4 leaf (eg maize).

6 Reflections on Animal Life Ancient and Modern

Whilst cosmologists may speculate on the possibility of life on distant planets, here on earth we can rejoice in what Darwin called “endless forms most beautiful”. Of all these forms, the most numerous are those united by a common segmented body plan with a tough exoskeleton, a brain at the front end, and most tellingly two-branched, jointed legs. These are the , the main groups of which are the Arachnids (spiders and their allies), Crustacea (crabs, lobsters, barnacles) and the Insects (flies, ants and bees, beetles, butterflies and dragonflies).

The arthropods constitute about three quarters of the total world species count, and if one considers the total number of individuals within each species, as high a proportion of the earth’s biomass. Many years ago, the renowned biologist, JBS Haldane, is reputed to have responded to some disputatious theologians that “God has an inordinate fondness for beetles, for there is thirty million of them”. The story may be apocryphal but the numbers remain impressive.

Both insects and crustaceans have representatives in nearly all possible habitats on land, in the sea and in the air, whilst spiders are predominantly terrestrial. From an anthropocentric point of view, crustaceans support a seafood industry and cuisine of major importance, whilst insects make a vital contribution to world agriculture in crop pollination. These are major economic benefits, to be balanced against the economic disadvantages of the insects’ roles in spreading disease as vectors (e.g. malaria) and in food spoliation (e.g. locusts).

7 The literature on the diversity of forms, lifestyles and patterns of being and reproduction within the arthropods is immense; but I won’t be blowing the dust off any of the available monographs and multi-volumed treatises here, because I only want to raise in a general way some aspects of the history of the group. The history of any group of is written in the fossils they leave behind and the chances of any individual deceased animal being fossilised is fairly remote, so the history may be patchy. Having hard parts like shells, teeth, bone or a tough exoskeleton greatly improves the chances of fossilisation: soft-bodied animals are only preserved in the most exceptional circumstances. Even formed fossils may be naturally destroyed by geological processes such as erosion. However, the exceptional circumstances I mention do occur throughout the immensity of geological time resulting in richly fossiliferous strata called Lagerstaten by geologists, three of which are noteworthy for their significance relating to arthropods :-

1).The Burgess Shale fauna of Canada (popularised in SJ Gould’s “Wonderful Life”) 2), The Chen Jiang fauna of China. 3). The Ediacara fauna of Australia

This group of sites taken together provide a remarkable insight into the development of the arthropods and other forms of life from the end of the Precambrian through to mid-Cambrian times (approximately 630 to 530 million years ago), just the point in time marking what has been called the explosion of life.

The Ediacara and Chen Jiang fauna includes forms that may well be the soft bodied ancestors of the arthropods (Parvancorus, Skania), leading to species that are fully formed and conclusively by the time of the Burgess shale. The earliest Cambrian forms are the Trilobites, an exclusively marine group, some benthic, some natatorial, which became extinct in the Permian period 250 million years ago, having in that intervening time developed about 15000 species. They are thought to have originated in the shelf seas on the margins of the Siberian craton which in those pre-Gondwanan times was independently tectonically adrift.

The body plan of the trilobite includes a cephalon, thorax and pygidium (head,body and tail) but this is not where they get their name. This arises from the longitudinal furrows which divide the animal into a central lobe and two lateral lobes. The two branched jointed legs are attached to the lateral lobe body segments whilst the essential organs of the nervous system and the gut have their origin in the central lobe of the head region. The outside branch of the legs, when preserved, bore bristle-like structures which may have functioned as gills, and the inner branch may have functioned in locomotion or feeding (or indeed in reproduction as in recent species- but that remains a mystery). A complete series of moult phases is known together with the fossilised exuvia for some species (Sao hirsuta). The trilobites are also the first group to have a visual system based on the compound eye. Aquatic relatives of the spiders (eurypterids) and crustaceans also swam in the Cambrian seas, but the Insects arose on land in the Devonian Period (420mya). If we speculate on issues of ancestry, either arthropodisation occurred on at least four occasions, or it occurred only once and the various groups of arthropod share a common ancestor. This latter idea is the one favoured by biologists today,

8 Nature Notes from RCT

Notes for RCT Watch Report Llanharan Marsh and Brynna Wood

Monthly total number of bird species seen April – 44 May – 45 June – 41 The second week of April marked the start of the main arrival of migrants. Blackcaps on the 9th – as usual - males first with 4 singing straightaway. 13th April was brilliant with my first ever sighting of a Tree Pipit at the top of a large tree in an adjacent field across the railway line singing its head off. I have seen them just over a mile away at the nearby Llanilid site previously but never here. 20th April and a Common Whitethroat was seen but sadly the only view this year – so far ! 24th April – a late migrating Sand Martin passed through.

May heralded the return of the Garden Warblers with 3 territories identified plus a good number of Common Swifts – as usual on has its nest above my office in the roof eaves and soon I will have the sound of a scratching chick and the incoming return of a parent with food to keep me company. The highlight for May was a Hobby passing through and heading towards Llanilid – at least 2 Hobbys have been feeding on House Martins in that area. Another first for me in Brynna Woods. Spring and early summer has been busy with both a BBS and a WBBS Surveys plus 3 ongoing House Martin Surveys for the BTO. Can you give a plug for the BTO House Martin surveys (Ed - yes I can Web link.) Their web site holds some details of next year’s programme which will feature House Martin nest surveys and this will be possible for some from their back garden.

May and June saw successful breeding for many species with numerous fledglings. Early June and the rock hard Ivy berries started to soften and this led to many frenzied feeding sessions for the local Blackbirds and Song Thrushes with the berries lasting for a couple of weeks. In mid-June 2 Highland Cattle calves returned to the marsh – one soon managed to climb over the extended fencing and relished in feeding the wrong side of the fenced pasture with the other calf watching intently – just like children !

The second half of June saw the regular return of the Red Kite with at least 1 bird seen daily over Llanharan. By the end of June, the woods started to become quieter with breeding activity diminished and some birds starting their summer moult – Jackdaws with practically no tail feathers become more common. Singing migrant males were Chiffchaff, Willow Warblers and Blackcaps but with reduced numbers from April/May.

Aside from the report – sadly no Common Crane has be seen by me - I live in hope. The wandering pair referred to may well be the 2 birds that have spent some weeks on the Goldcliff area and return nightly to the Goldcliff reserve – currently not back until 2100 hrs and then off early in the morning – this suggests that they have found sufficient food in the meadows of the area not to look to move on. They are very likely to be Slimbridge reared birds as opposed to a wandering pair from North Norfolk.

9 The Camargue in southern France – Europe’s largest marshland and home to many special plants, birds and animals – is a veritable pilgrimage centre for naturalists. Many fewer perhaps will have heard of Europe’s second largest marshland, although it is much nearer home. This is La Grande Brière nestling in the south-east corner of Brittany, just north of the estuary of the River Loire.

Covering some 17,000 acres La Grande Brière forms part of one of France’s Regional Parks. This summer I paid a return visit after a gap of many years and found that it is still a magical place.

The central part is reminiscent of the Norfolk Broads with its network of waterways amongst the reeds and grasses. These can be explored on chalands, flat-bottomed boats which were the traditional transport of the local people. In the short time I had to explore these lonely wetlands I was spell-bound by the birdlife that was all around, many of it rare or unknown in Britain.

It is, for example, home to breeding colonies of Bluethroats and Black-winged Stilts. A Purple Heron (the first I have seen) flew from the reeds as I passed, but the biggest surprise for me was to find a colony of Sacred Ibis. These are, I believe, an introduced species, but they seem to be breeding successfully and were at home with the gulls, Black Terns and Little Egrets on the wetlands.

The human scene is fascinating too. Thatched cottages make up the charming villages where the local inhabitants traditionally made a living from livestock farming, hunting and fishing. Strangely there is even some completely new housing, some of it definitely modernistic, where the properties are still thatched.

On the south-west corner of the marshes, near the village of Le Croisic, there are extensive salt pans where for many centuries sea water has been evaporated for its salt. The practice continues to this day. The salt pans are favoured by Avocets which can be seen there sweeping their elegant upturned bills through the mud for insects and crustaceans.

La Grande Brière is an area that is completely distinct from the rest of Brittany. It deserves to be better known to the hoards of British tourists who cross the Channel every year, and especially to those wildlife enthusiasts who would rather be spared the long journey to the Camargue.

10 Solitary Bees

Bees have been all over the news in recent years, with the threats facing them, and their importance to humans and our food production well documented. The word ‘’ covers over 250 species in the UK, yet some people think that there is just one type of ‘Bee’! Most people are familiar with honeybees (make honey, live in hives, swarm) and bumblebees (big, furry, stripey), yet the vast majority of our native bee species are actually ‘Solitary’ bees.

We have over 225 species of solitary bee in the UK, and they are a fascinating group! They are also the unsung heroes of pollination. They are thought to be even more effective pollinators than honeybees and even bumblebees, partly because they are slightly less efficient foragers. Solitary bees collect their pollen ‘dry’ as opposed to bumblebees and honeybees which collect their pollen ‘wet’. This means that bumblebees and honeybees moisten the pollen with nectar to make it stick to their pollen baskets, whereas solitary bees stuff it into a brush of hairs on their legs or underneath of their abdomen. This ‘dry’ collection of pollen means that pollen transfers to flowers more readily. Also, due to the sheer number of species of solitary bee, and their array of different life histories, they are active throughout much of the year and they will visit a wide variety of flowers.

Many people like to encourage solitary bees in their gardens using solitary bee homes (usually made with bamboo canes, holes drilled into wood, etc), which are often very effective. However, most people do not realise that the majority of our native species, some 70%, are actually ground nesting so they will not use solitary bee nest boxes. Many species specialise in a particular plant species or group of plants, and will therefore only be on the wing for the time that their forage plant is flowering.

As a group, solitary bees are very varied. They have a variety of nesting habits, body shapes and sizes, colours, forage preferences and emergence times. The majority of species are difficult to identify, many require microscopic identification. However, here are some distinctive species, or groups of species, to look out for:

– Look out for this charismatic species in spring. It can be seen from February through to June. It forages on lots of wild and garden spring flowers. They superficially resemble a bumblebee, but their darting (almost hoverfly-like) flight distinguishes them. The female is all black with red – yellowish hairs on her hind legs. The males are a gingery brown, with hairy feet! This species is ground nesting, and often nests gregariously in vertical soil profiles and cliffs. Both the common and scientific names are wonderfully memorable!

– There are seven Leafcutter bee species found in the UK, and an additional 2 species have gone extinct. This is a group which you are likely to see using solitary bee nest tubes such as bamboo. As the name suggests, they cut out bits of leaf – they have a particular liking for rose and lilac – which they use to line their nest brood cells. They collect pollen on the underside of their abdomen in a thick brush of hairs called a ‘scopa’. Their scopa can often be bright yellow or orange, especially if it is full of pollen.

11 – So called because the female shaves hairs off plants (such as Lamb’s ear) to use in brood cell construction. The male Wool carder bee is a boisterous bee who is fiercely territorial! He will fly directly at any invaders of his territory, including hoverflies and bumblebees. Wool carder bees are closely related to Leafcutter bees.

– Closely related to Leafcutter bees are the Mason bees. They will also use solitary bee nest tubes, but also crumbling walls and sandy embankments. The Red mason bee (Osmia bicornis) can often be seen collecting wet clay mud, which they use to line their brood cells.

– This is a large group of solitary bees (around 65 species in the UK). Many of them are difficult to identify, but there are also some very distinctive species. The Tawny mining bee ( fulva) is a very distinctive spring species. The female is a bright tawny orange colour all over. The Ashy mining bee (Andrena cineraria), another large spring species, is distinctive as the females are black with two ashy hair bands across the thorax. Many mining bees can be found nesting in garden lawns.

Many solitary bee species are actually ‘cuckoo’ species which are nest parasites (or ‘cleptoparasites’) – i.e. they lay their eggs in the provisioned brood cells of other solitary bee species. There are a number of different groups of Cuckoo bees which all specialise in parasitizing different species.

The Bees Wasps and Ants Recording Society (BWARS) website (www.bwars.com) has an array of fascinating species accounts pages and information sheets for you to find out more about the world of solitary bees!

12 Loving the Lamprey

For the last 4 years I have been searching for our elusive Lamprey and at the end of April (with the help of Greg Jones) I finally managed to see some.

We have 3 species of Lamprey in the UK-Sea Lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), River Lamprey (Lampetra fluviatilis) and the baby of the bunch, the Brook Lamprey (Lampetra planeri). The scientific name Petromyzon means 'stone suckers', They have a circular disc structure around their mouth which they use to attach themselves to stones like an anchor to stop them getting washed away. In Henry Williamson’s story 'Salar the Salmon' Salar is attacked by Petromyzon the lamprey whilst living at sea but manages to get away. The River and Brook Lamprey are catadromous (they spawn in fresh water). But only the Brook Lamprey spends its whole life in fresh water and it was this species that Greg helped me find during April. The eggs of the Brook Lamprey hatch into larvae which live in the mud and silt of the cleanest of our brooks, rivers and streams. The eyeless larvae live for 3 to 5 years feeding on detritus before metamorphosing into adults. During this process they develop eyes and teeth and a sucker pad but lose their intestinal tract (strange how it loses the ability to eat once it has developed its teeth!). The mature adults can be up to 15cm long but soon die after spawning, the larvae are much smaller. They may be under-recorded as they can be almost impossible to see unless you are lucky enough to witness them spawning in Spring.

Of Cause & Consequence

Our recent trip to Bourton-on-the-Water was a triumph and enjoyed by all, but there was, however, one blot on the landscape. Those of us who went on the walk following the Greystone farm visit happened on an unfortunate 3D example of fly-tipping – not the systematic large scale variety, but the result of the irresponsible act of an isolated individual. Some irritation was expressed by some and one ventured that the 4th dimension –time - would eventually take care of it and that in the meantime for wildlife it would constitute just one more habitat to exploit. Tongue-in-cheek of course. But, why do people do it? I recently refurbished a bathroom generating some rubble and old fittings to be disposed of. It turned out however that the Local Authority Amenity Site (the tip) no longer accepts such items. This no doubt streamlines its operation and saves the L.A. money. Whilst acknowledging that there are responsible alternatives (which incidentally I did use) one can see why an individual householder might be tempted to fly-tip. The money the L.A. saved in site operation is then required to clean up a fly-tip site and litigate against the perpetrators. This seems short-sighted to me: perhaps we should lobby our local councillors about some L.A. Policies.

13 “...They were all yellow” ( c. martin, 2000)

Well, perhaps they weren’t all yellow, but have you noticed that there was a preponderance of that particular colour in the wild flowers of early spring? These include the following :-

Coltsfoot Cowslip Daffodil Dandelion Lesser Celandine Primrose Yellow Archangel (and Gorse , of course!) all of which bloom in the months of March and April.

In general terms, yellow is the most visible and luminous of all the colours of the spectrum and therefore captures our attention more than any other. More specifically, it is statistically the most common colour of flowers and is particularly attractive to insects whose vision is especially sensitive to it. This helps bees, for example, who emerge in a weakened state after winter hibernation, needing to have their task of foraging amongst flowering plants for sources of nectar and pollen made as easy as possible.

But why yellow in particular? We know that many flowers have ultraviolet petal patterns that converge onto the flower-centre, providing a guide for bees, but this does not supply a complete answer to the question. A more detailed response was recently supplied by a Mr. Dave Kilroy of Epsom, in a letter to a national newspaper. It reads as follows :-

“The colour of an object actually indicates the light wavelengths that the object has rejected—that is to say, reflected. The rest of the light is absorbed. So a yellow-coloured object is absorbing the other primary colours--red and blue, and therefore violet—while rejecting the yellow. Hence it is the most efficient colour for absorbing ultraviolet which, in spring, is fairly weak.”

In lighter vein, yellow is the colour of the mind and intellect, according to colour-psychology. In folklore, it is associated with optimism and cheerfulness, whilst to Shakespeare, it denoted the pursuit of pleasure especially when that activity ended with disastrous consequences (as in “the primrose path” in ).

To Chris Martin, songwriter and lead-vocalist of the band , yellow is the colour of “brightness and hope and devotion”, as shown in the lyrics of his song “Yellow”, an extract from which, is the title of this article. In truth, he wasn’t referring to wild flowers at all, but rather to the stars in the night sky over the recording studios at Rockfield near Monmouth......

D. Fraser

14 Murder Mystery

Group member Hugh Lansdown came across this poor caterpillar who we thought, at first had succumb to a fungal infection. After consulting some experts at the British Mycological Society we were pointed in the direction of another micro-organism, a virus known as the baculovirus. It infects caterpillars and drives them to climb to the top of the plants they live on right before they die! The decaying corpses rain more baculovirus on the foliage below, allowing it to infect future victims. The sequence above was taken by Hugh over a period of 20 minutes.

The Name Game - Badger

Is there a more iconic symbol of British wildlife than the humble Badger? Adopted as the logo of the Wildlife Trusts and well known by everyone, well loved by most! But how many folk names do you know for our furry friends? I’ll give you one for starters, Brock! Turn to page 18 to see how many you know!

(Eden Phillpotts, ‘The Badgers’)

15 21st Century Nature Writing

There is a long-standing tradition of British nature writing in prose and poetry—from Gilbert White in the 18th century to John Clare and Richard Jefferies in the 19th century, and 20th century authors such as Edward Thomas, Henry Williamson, James Fisher, Gavin Maxwell, J.A.Baker and Richard Mabey. The above list is not meant to be either complete or definitive but it does comprise authors with very different approaches to nature writing - from scientific (Fisher) to romantic and lyrical (Jefferies) to mystical (Baker). In the first 15 years of our present century, there is evidence that this tradition is continuing, and to support this view, there follows brief consideration of three nature books of this period. They are:-- by Mark Cocker (2007) by Robert Macfarlane (2012) by John Lewis-Stempel (2014) All three books—although quite disparate in content—do have certain common features:- (1) They are written in first-person narrative

(2) They have all been described as prose poetry

(3) Their authors have had works published on subjects other than natural history

The first author-Mark Cocker- lives in rural Norfolk. He is an environmentalist and a naturalist who specializes in birds. In addition to natural history, he has published biographies and books on travel and history. He also contributes articles to newspapers and magazines, including the regular “Country Diary” column in The Guardian. His two best-known works -- (2005) and (2007), both received widespread critical acclaim, being particularly successful. As the title suggests, it reflects the author’s obsession with crows, rooks and jackdaws, and is a record of his profound observations of these corvids in his eponymous country (which ranges from Norfolk to Dumfriesshire). This book—to quote a review in New Statesman :- “... unfolds with splendid variety, incorporating scientific exposition, environmental history, poetry and biography.” Cocker has expressed the view that a large amount of nature writing has sentimentalized its subject ,providing interpretations that are inaccurate and which merely serve to reflect the individual proclivities of the various authors, ”...but my work is in the poetry of fact”, he declares.

The second author-Robert Macfarlane- is a best-selling author and a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He is described as a walker-writer, his books combining travel-writing with descriptions of natural history, geology and landscapes. He also contributes to newspapers and magazines, including his “Common Ground” series in The Guardian. He is widely recognized as a brilliant prose-stylist and has been garlanded with many awards, honours and prizes. Prominent amongst his works are (2003), (2007) and (2012), described by the author as “...a loose trilogy of books about landscape and the human heart.” The final volume of this trilogy— —subtitled -- sees the author following ancient rights of way, pilgrimage paths, etc. This book spent most of 2012 in the top ten non-fiction best-sellers list and was voted Book-of-the-Year by many literati. It is an extraordinary work by an author widely considered as the best of the new nature writers.

16 The third author—John Lewis-Stempel—lives in Herefordshire. He is a farmer and best-selling author, specializing in both natural history and military history. He is a former columnist for the Sunday Express and frequently appears on radio and television. He was a guest-author at this year’s Hay Festival. In his latest book- —he diarizes a year in the life of a traditional hay meadow on his farm near the Herefordshire border, giving vivid descriptions of the flora and fauna as well as his own husbandry and farming practices. A reader is almost certain to discover some hitherto-unknown fact in this paean to grassland. It contains—for example—a specific definition of the word aftermath which was certainly new to this reviewer. As for the “protected species” that is the symbol of our Wildlife Trust and which is persecuted both legally and illegally, this is what Lewis-Stempel writes of the badger in this book:–

“He has primacy. The badger is the oldest landowner in Britain and roamed the deciduous forests of southern England long before the Channel cut us from the Continent.” These three books are highly recommended to Bridgend Group readers.

A Bird Beaten with Skill

Geoff Lane, one of the Group's long- standing members, made a skilful depiction of an Osprey on beaten copper sheet. This was presented to the Trust at the Bridgend Group's March meeting, and was gratefully received by Rose Revera. The picture now stands proudly in the Trust's offices at Parc Slip.

17 The Name Game - Badger

How many of these folk-names did you know?

Going off on a tangent, if you have never heard the ‘Badger Badger’ song which was an ‘Internet hit’ then you can hear it here but be warned, it can be annoying (even if you like badgers) and will stay in your head for the rest of the day! If you made it through that, have a listen to the Flash Gordon - inspired Brian May and Brian Blessed (yes, Blessed!) collaboration anti-cull track Here which really makes you want to go out and ‘Save all the Badgers’!!

Join the Committee

Fancy trying something different? Why not consider joining the Bridgend Group Committee? We are always on the look out for new (and old) faces to get involved with all aspects of running the Bridgend Group. It doesn't have to take up too much of your time and you will get a warm glow inside from the knowledge that you are contributing to probably the best local group ever known!

The Last Laugh

Thanks to Christine Pugh for this shot of some hungry Pelicans queuing for their breakfast in Key West, Florida.

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