Alan's Ramblings - nature tag

It's a secret

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 21:51:00 GMT

Went for a walk with the family yesterday evening after tea and took the following picture with the less than excellent camera on my phone but I rather like the soft effect. The location is less than 6 miles in a straight line from the house, and less than 200 metres from the nearest road, but I'm not telling you exactly where it is - it's a secret :-)

Swarm

Mon, 31 May 2010 22:27:00 GMT

We were on our way out of the house today and I'd just got into the car only to see James dash back into the house, slam the door shut and start waving and mouthing madly at me through the window. Eventually I figured out what he was trying to tell me - there was a swarm of insects in the tree behind the car. I got out and took a look, and sure enough there was - you can see the big brown mass in the tree above the back of the car.

I went inside and grabbed my camera and went back for a closer look (yes, I'm daft ;-) I've seen bee swarms on the telly before but never quite such a large one, it must have been nearly three feet long - wow! The bees didn't seem at all aggressive, they just formed a huge, quietly buzzing mass. In fact people walking past only a few meters away didn't even seem to realise they were there.

I was in a bit of a quandary about what to do. The British Beekeepers Association website has a "swarm help" page which gave a contact number for the area, but I didn't get any answer. The site also suggested contacting the local Environmental Health Officers, but today being a Bank Holiday meant that wasn't an option. The local Council website gave a contact number for another Beekeeper, but again, no answer. Hmm. Chris then remembered that she'd bought some honey in the past from a local Beekeper and as we were heading out of town in that direction anyway, we decided to knock on his door and ask for advice. When he came to the door and we explained the story to him, he immediately said that he'd come and collect the bees - wow, didn't quite expect that! Brian asked us to go back home and keep an eye on the bees as he said often they would move on from where they had settled. We duly went home, and about 10 minutes after we arrived, and for no apparent reason, the outer layer of the swarm started to fly off the swarm, and within a couple of minutes the entire swarm were in the air and on the move.

They moved across onto another tree, and then onto another, finally starting to form a bee ball again just as Brian arrived. Unfortunately they'd formed three different clusters in the tree, all over a parked car, which made getting at them rather difficult. Brian fetched an empty hive from his car and placed it as close as possible to the bees. He explained that if he got the queen into the hive the other bees would most probably follow, and that he'd put combs and food in the hive to try and make it a tempting residence for them. I asked him why they swarmed in the first place and he explained that it was how colonies propagated - the colony would hatch a new queen who stayed in the hive whilst the old queen and a good proportion of the flying bees left in a swarm to form a new colony.

You can see two of the bee balls in the tree above the car. I got a ladder from the shed and with the hive in place below, Brian climbed up and, one by one, clipped off the branches with the bee balls on them, collecting a couple of stings for his troubles. By now there was a bit of an audience watching him, several of the neighbours were as fascinated as I was and had come out to see what was happening.

Brian gently cut and carried the branches down to the hive, put the branch inside the hive and shook the bees off. I expected a storm of angry bees as he cut and carried the branches, but they just stayed in the ball and disappeared inside the hive when shaken off. Brian said it was a pretty big swarm, he estimated probably 10,000 bees or more. Once the bees were in the hive and the lid was on, Brian said that he'd leave the hive where it was until dusk, then the bees would all go inside the hive and he could safely plug the entrance and move it. When we got back home this evening the hive had gone, so I guess the rescue was successful.

Bees are having a bit of a hard time at the moment, with colonies dying out for reasons that aren't fully understood - Brian said he'd lost 7 hives over the winter, and that he was expecting some bees from the Isle of Man to see if they will fare any better. It was therefore nice to see the founding of a new colony, and Brian kindly gave me a jar of his honey when he left, so a success all round :-)

Green

Thu, 20 May 2010 18:19:00 GMT

Went for a quick walk up quarry lane behind the house and came back down through the trees alongside Shittern Clough (yes, that really is its name). After the hard winter we've had, nature is on overdrive, the birds are all going mental and the trees are all that incredible eye-bursting green. I spotted the Oak tree above which was a particularly psychedelic shade.

I also saw a buzzard over Yellowslacks being mobbed by a pair of nesting Curlews. Spring is in top gear and summer is fast approaching.

Snow, Hare

Sun, 05 Dec 2004 04:31:01 GMT

A couple of weeks ago we had the first snow of the year - according to some pundits we are in for a cold winter this year. I was out on patrol that weekend, trying to finish my survey of the Bleaklow fence. Unfortunately the snow made it such slow going that by the time I'd reached Grinah it was time to turn around and come back. I finally got the survey finished yesterday, it took me seven days in total to cover the 32Km and record the 153 stiles and fences - much of the time being taken up by walking to and from the fenceline rather than along it.

Anyway, I got some photos of Bleaklow in the snow which I've posted below. The first one is of the 'mushroom rock' at Bleaklow Stones - a well-known example of the sometimes wierd shapes that the gritstone weathers into. I've jazzed the picture up a little, but the sun really was directly behind it ;-)

The footprints in the snow in from of the rock are those of the mountain hares that live up here - you can see the prints even more clearly in the photo below. This was taken from Bleaklow Stones, the western end of the Kinder plateau can be seen to the left of the photo.

On the same day I was out blundering around in the snow and falling through it into what seemed like just about every rank peat bog in the Peak District, Bob and John were over by Lightside, about 2Km from where I live. John spotted this hare up in the rocks - they often hide up in areas like this as it gives them protection from both the weather and predators - not that they actually have that many predators in the Peak District!

They are normally fairly skittish (well, they are Lepus timidus after all ;-), so Bob and John spent some time carefully approaching it and as well as the superb photo below, John got some excellent video footage. It is just in the process of shedding its brown summer coat and switching into its white winter camouflage - not a particularly sucessful ruse bearing in mind the limeted amounts of snow we get - all the snow that was on the ground when these pictures were taken has long since gone.

If you are interested in more information on Mountain Hares, I can recommend a visit to both The Mammal Society's page on them, and the image collection at ARKive.

Wildlife roundup

Wed, 08 Sep 2004 10:22:06 GMT

August was a busy month, and September wasn't much quieter, so I've been neglecting my blog - naughty me. I've had the following wildlife photos floating around for a while, and I've finally got round to posting them.

I spotted this humongous caterpillar whilst I was out on patrol. I'm not sure what it is (possibly a fox moth caterpillar?) but I thought it was kinda pretty against the heather

This leveret that I spotted near Wain Stones was quite unconcerned, and let me get pretty close before lolloping off. I'm sure that if it survives its first winter it will be far more wary next year!

I took this whilst I was on holiday in Scotland, on the Kintyre peninsula. This is a Peacock butterfly (Inachis io). There are some beautiful pictures of other British butterflies on Stephen Cheshire's website.

This cooperative dragonfly perched long enough for me to get a couple of shots of it, this is the most in-focus of the bunch! I'm no expert, but it looks like it is probably a Hawker dragonfly, Family Aeshnidae. Feel free to look at the British Dragonfly Society webpages to see if you can figure out which one it is!