Birds of Paradise - "Why do they do that?"

There are 42 different birds-of-paradise and most can be found on New Guinea and the surrounding islands. The majority of birds-of-paradise live in tropical forests including rainforest, swamps and moss forest, with nearly all of them being solitary tree dwellers.

They are a special group of birds with amazing colours, large feathers and impressive dancing. Some species carry out such elaborate and strange displays that it leaves those who see it in awe, wondering how and why they perform in this way.

The Raggiana Bird of Paradise performing it's dance.

Europeans first discovered the birds in 1522, when Magellan’s only surviving ship returned home after its world voyage. Naturalists Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin then visited New Guinea in the 1850s. They were awestruck by the beauty and variety of the birds. It was the amazing colours and enlarged feather plumes that caught Darwin’s interest, since they seemed to conflict with his developing theory of natural selection, which favors traits that offer the best survival for the individual. Darwin believed the colours, modified plumes, and dances were intended to help males gain favor with females and had nothing to do with survival. Years later, he explained that the male beauty was a result of sexual selection, a concept that was far ahead of its time.

These bizarre and interesting dances aren’t random coincidence. Young males inherit the dance moves from their fathers, then refine them through practice and watching adults. The females watch carefully when the males perform as it is ultimately their choice that decides which dances are the best and will make it to the next generation.

Below are a couple of videos where I have created a collection of weird and wonderful bird dances and mating displays, which includes many varieties of the birds-of-paradise so you can see for yourself some of the amazing dances they perform.

Enjoy!

 

Creating a Safe Haven for Wild Reptiles: Hibernacula & Refugia.

Yesterday whilst volunteering at my local Lee Valley Park, I assisted with the creation of a new hibernacula for reptiles. The word hibernacula comes from the Latin phrase meaning, "tent for winter quarters" but these refuges may be utilised all year round, perhaps even just as a wildlife corridor.

With a little planning, you can easily create hibernacula and refugia in your own garden which can make a big difference by providing extra food and refuge for reptiles and compensating for the loss of appropriate habitats in surrounding areas and creating secure passages through the landscape.

There are a variety of materials you can use. Tree roots, deep leave litter, compost heaps, log piles and rock piles are locations that can be great refuges and hibernacula for reptiles as well as amphibians - providing habitat, cover, locations to bask, and food.

You can find out if reptiles are using your garden by leaving out spare wooden boards, roofing felt or carpet tiles, which may be used for basking or taking refuge underneath.

Stage 1 - Location

Preferably you should plan where you want to put your hibernacula first, as it could involve digging an area to put your materials. The most important thing to remember here is drainage, you don't want to dig a hole in the ground as though you would a pond, as it will just collect water and won't be fit for purpose.

Also avoid using straight sides and edges, a sloped pit will be much better for draining away water. Our hibernacula yesterday was dug into the side of a small hill not too far from some hedgerows and trees.


Stage 2 - Placing your materials
  

 After you have dug out the area for your hibernacula, the best first layer will be rocks and stones. These should be placed around the bottom area to create your base and should have gaps inbetween when piling them on top of each other. Remember that you aren't trying to make it inpenetrable! If you don't have rocks or stones, broken up bricks can be used as an alternative.

After the stones are placed, logs, sticks and branches are a good next layer. As before, be careful not to create an inpenetrable pile of wood, be sure to put the logs at different angles on top of each other to allow spaces and gaps inbetween. Don't worry if you have limited materials available to you, anything natural will do. You can use wood, tree roots, rubble, compost, mulch etc. Mix up your materials in a natural way and avoid being too tidy, a messy design with varying shapes, levels and gaps is exactly what you want.

Stage 3 - Cover

Finally, you should cover the top of your hibernacula with any suitable vegetation but ideally from the same location or area. A natural grass and bramble mix works well, this is similar to what we used for ours (shown to the right). Due to the location, we had plenty of surrounding vegetation on the hill that will grow around the refuge and set it in. If you are creating one in your garden, then planting or relocating suitable scrub on the northern side can also provide extra cover and shade, especially if your refuge doesn't have many plants or trees around it that are naturally occurring. You can place any soil or mud that you dug out previously on top of the refuge, this can help to protect it.


Remember: If you believe reptiles or amphibians may already be using your garden and the site is overgrown and you need to strim the area beforehand or carry out maintenance and gather materials, do a careful search to check for animals before you start in the area and proceed with caution. If the area you are creating your refuge on is a sensitive reptile site, or maybe Great Crested Newts could be present, contact a herpetologist or an organisation such as FrogLife, who will be able to advise and assist you.

Our completed hibernacula at Lee Valley.

Depending on your location you may likely see Slow-worms and Grass Snakes using the refuge. It is rarer to see Adders and Common Lizards, but still possible!

Feel free to comment or message with pictures of your own DIY hibernacula, it'll be great to see how you got on.

Hedgehogs: Endangered Species or Prickly Pest?

The British love hedgehogs. They are associated with the UK and are considered to be a national species. In 2013, the Hedgehog even won the UK natural emblem poll. However the once common hedgehog is now under threat from various factors including development and habitat loss.

In the last 10 years, numbers have fallen by 30% and there are now thought to be fewer than 1 million left in the UK compared to the 36 million estimated in the 1950s.  

The UK's favourite cute and prickly animal.
Photo: Michael Gäbler.

There could be many factors that are contributing to the decline of hedgehog populations in the UK. The increasing use of impenetrable fencing around gardens, which reduces movement of hedgehogs between gardens, has led to fragmentation of urban populations and is likely to have contributed to declining numbers. Pesticides have reduced amounts of invertebrates available for hedgehogs to eat in gardens. Furthermore, slug pellets are also thought to impact directly, causing mortalities. Herbicide use on lawns also reduces the availability
of earthworms, a main prey species.

Due to agricultural intensification, there has been around a 50% decline in hedgerows in rural Britain since 1945. Hedgerows provide ideal locations for hedgehog nesting sites as well as being important movement corridors. Another issue is with the way hedges are managed. Mechanical flailing has replaced traditional coppicing in many places resulting in hedgerows that are increasingly gappy and lack a dense base. This makes them far less suitable as places to shelter from predators and for nesting or hibernation.

In the UK it has been estimated that up to 15,000 hedgehogs are killed annually on roads. Roads also act as barriers to the movement of hedgehogs, causing fragmentation of populations. 

Numerous campaigns, charities and societies have been set up to raise awareness and protect this much loved animal and save it from going extinct.

But meanwhile in New Zealand..

Hedgehogs are thriving. They are viewed as a pest and are an invasive species, being a threat to native wildlife.

The hedgehogs were brought to New Zealand by British colonists in the 1870s to remind them of home. The first recorded introductions were in 1870, with subsequent introductions in 1871, 1885, 1890 and 1894. Aside from acclimatisation, hedgehogs were also introduced to control garden pests such as slugs, snails and grass grubs. Hedgehogs are now present in almost all New Zealand habitats, including urban, rural, braided river and forests areas.  

  

Their foreign diet includes the eggs and chicks of ground-nesting birds and they are already believed to have contributed to the decline and extinction of up to fifteen bird species and are a threat to those that remain.

Hedgehog preying on ground-nesting bird eggs.
Photo: Martin H. Smith.

Species they impact include riverbed breeding birds such as banded dotterel and black-fronted tern, of which they predate on their eggs and chicks. They are known to predate upon the rare giant native centipede and the critically endangered Cromwell chafer beetle. Lowland populations of Powelliphanta snails are also affected, and although only smaller juvenile snails are eaten, this severely affects recruitment and population recovery. Hedgehogs also prey upon lizards, particularly in cooler periods when lizard activity slows and Skinks are particularly at risk from them.

New Zealanders are encouraged to trap and control hedgehog numbers to protect native birds during their breeding seasons in particular. This is a huge leap from the intense campaigning going on in the UK to protect them, considering they are at risk of dying out!

It is amazing how different species adapt and react to different environments. Even in their natural home they are worse off than in a location with a very different climate and environment. The invasive, introduced population in New Zealand is now higher than the native population in the UK. 

It is an important lesson, animals should not be moved and introduced to countries where they don't belong, as you can never fully predict the impact they may have and the problems they could cause in the future.