Wandsworth Guardian: Local news from Wandsworth, Putney, Clapham, Tooting, Balham and Battersea

Nature Notes: Brief lives

10:33am Monday 17th June 2013

Down on the Thames at Kingston, large mayflies, are known at this stage as sub-adults or duns, lift off the water with weak fluttering flight. Their aim is to reach bank-size vegetation where they can shed their skins for a final time to become perfect adult insects called ‘spinners’.

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Nature Notes: Dragons and Damsels

9:40am Monday 10th June 2013

Dragonflies first appeared on earth almost four hundred million years ago. Evolving before dinosaurs they are of course still with us today, almost uuchanged except for the fact that all those years ago their wingspans measured nearly two feet!

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Nature Notes: Doorstep Delights

10:08am Monday 3rd June 2013

Whilst of course it is exciting to travel on safari to see exotic creatures, there is so much to enjoy just outside our windows.

Nature Notes: Cloud over cuckoo land

10:07am Tuesday 28th May 2013

To hear the evocative springtime call of the cuckoo these days is a comparative rarity as the bird has, in common with many other species been in steep decline for decades.

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Nature Notes: Lady of the Woods

9:27am Monday 20th May 2013

Five of our butterflies, namely small tortoiseshell, peacock, red admiral, comma and brimstone hibernate. There used to be a sixth but the large tortoiseshell is now virtually extinct in Britain.

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Nature Notes: Habitat destruction

10:10am Tuesday 14th May 2013

Since the second world war, hundreds of miles of hedgerows have been grubbed up to increase areas available for growing food crops. Woodlands have been damaged and farm ponds filled in.

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Nature Notes: Bloomin' marvellous

10:41am Tuesday 7th May 2013

Perhaps as a result of the late spring delaying their appearance, it seems to me that wild flowers have benefitted somewhat?

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Nature Notes: Swift return

9:25am Monday 29th April 2013

Come 1st May I scan the skies for telltale glimpse of sickle wings, those joyful screaming cries; glad to welcome them once more to England green and dear, for summer never can begin for me until they're here.

Nature Notes: Spring all around

9:26am Monday 22nd April 2013

For frogspawn to be laid in mid-April is most unusual but that is what occurred in my pond and elsewhere.

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Nature Notes: Holt! Who goes there?

5:20pm Wednesday 17th April 2013

Most people have read or are aware of author Henry Williamson’s classic tale of Tarka The Otter.

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