Of mice and moths…

I am writing to say that I saw a Narrow-bordered, or Broad-bordered Bee Hawk moth on my herbaceous border in mid-September 2003. It is the first time I have ever seen one but it was flying too rapidly to see whether it was broad or narrow. I see that the front cover of the SNS 2003 report has a good picture of a Broad- bordered, but no apparent reference in the text.

I have noticed this winter that I have not had to trap any mice  which normally come into the house and garage loft to eat my carpets. As these have nearly always in the last 20 years been yellow-necked mice I have been a reluctant trapper. Are they scarce because of the hot summer, or because my cat-hating dog died and my neighbours two cats have reduced our garden bird life dramatically, and have encouraged rabbits?

Hugh Philbrick,
Gt Bealings, Woodbridge

    Homicidal Hedgehogs

If your image of the hedgehog is of Mrs Tiggywinkle snuffling benignly along the hedgerows, eating slugs and snails and cutely curling up at your approach, the following incident may change that; there is a more sinister side to this apparently charming animal. On our small farm, we have recently acquired a flock of organic chickens from someone who was moving away. The hens we purchased were not the bucolic clucky type we had envisaged but a modern breed of highly-strung birds with a spiteful streak. In spite of everything we did to provide not only the essentials but also plenty of distractions and a large area to roam in, the move upset them enough to start a spate of feather-pecking. We would remove any pecked birds and keep them in cages in a shed to recover.
One evening, last October, we found a dead chicken in a cage and assumed it had succumbed to its injuries. The next night there was a great deal of clucking and we found a hedgehog which had managed to get into the cage through a handle hole – we assumed it was after the chicken food and, thinking ‘aah how sweet’, removed it to the garden.
Two hours later we heard the chickens again and went out to find a very bloody-nosed hedgehog and a dead chicken. While it might be scientific to describe how the beast dispatched its prey– you do not want to know the details. Are there other reports of murderous hedgehogs? I shall assume that this one was particularly disturbed and continue with my illusion that they are the charming and innocent pest controllersIhavealwaystakenthemfor.

Joan Hardingham

    Canals and Kingfishers

This year I spent the New Year holiday cruising on a narrow boat on the Kennet and AvonCanal. It proved a cold but tranquil way to pass the holiday and I can recommend the frequency and quality of local inns as a way to get the warmth back into frozen limbs.

I am sure that in summer there would be even more wildlife to see but I was struck by the long stretches of canal bank that had been re-profiled for the benefit of water voles. This was achieved by the addition of concrete or wooden barriers below the surface, together with planting of marginal vegetation between the barrier and the bank. It was also interesting to see large numbers of A-shaped wooden steps leading out of the water, newly provided I was assured for the ease of exit for animals that may fall in. Certainly a few drowned rabbits and one deer were evidence that not all creatures found these lifesavers.

However the major memory for all of us on the boat had to be our closest ever encounter with kingfishers. These magnificent birds were present in abundance, sometimes every hundred yards or so. Apparently they did not regard a canal boat ‘skipper’ as human at all, obviously realising how numbingly cold you get after an hour or two on the tiller! Consequently they would stay perched in an overhanging tree as we chugged past, at times within three or four feet of them. Wonderfully close views could be had as they dived for fish and ate their catch so close you did not need binoculars.

This was also often true if you sat in the bows of the boat. I fancy that fish may have sometimes moved away from the boat as it passed and the kingfishers had learnt this. Many of the birds would perch, wait for the bows to pass then fly ahead and wait for us to catch up, repeating this several times until they had a successful catch or perhaps they reached the end of their stretch of canal as they then flew back astern of us.

The observation that seemed the most unusual to me  swas the way that some Kingfishers varied their diet. About three or four times during the week we noticed a Kingfisher swoop down in front of a duck and steal a piece of bread it was swimming for. There was often plenty of bread floating on the surface when boats scattered both ducks and the offerings of small children. Although possibly the whiteness of the bread could appear like the glint of a fish turning, or the movement of the duck swimming towards it might have elicited a‘get there first’ response, nevertheless the kingfishers concerned did seem to perch and eat rather than drop the bread. Nobody I have asked has seen this behaviour before so I wonder, has anyone else an explanation or a similar tale to tell?

Adrian Chalkley

    Rhopalomyia taneciticola
on Tansy,  Tanacetum vulgare

When reading Colin A Jacobs' article on theRhopalomyia taneciticola I remembered seeing this gall mentioned in the Field Studies Council  ‘Aidgap’ on British Plant Galls (2002).

“Gall ovoid or flask-shaped, hard, about 8 x 5mm, lobed or toothed at apex, pale green or purplish, in flower head, leaf axil, occasionally on leaf: contains a pink larva or pupa, Diptera: Cecidomyiidae.  This has not been found on Tanacetum parthenium.”

B.Mathews

(Editor’s note – T. parthenium is the latin name of feverfew.)

© 2004   Suffolk Naturalists' Society