Page 8 - BBC Wildlife - August 2017 UK

WILD AUGUST

Q ROBIN
ROBIN REVIVAL
After the “bird-stifled uncanny Q GREEN WOODPECKER
emptiness of June and July”, as HE
Bates put it in his 1936 classic GRASS IS GREENER
Through the Woods, robins start In summer our largest woodpecker
singing again this month. That’s escorts its fledged young to park
not the only change. Earlier in and garden lawns to forage for ants
the summer, robins busy feeding together, especially where the soil is
young keep a low profile. They also light and sandy. Juveniles (pictured)
look pretty tatty, with faded orange can easily be told by their thickly
breasts as if they’ve been left out in spotted head and underparts,
the sun (which, of course, they have). though come September they will be
By August, their breast feathers are moulting into their first set of smart
red once more following a moult. adult feathers. Hunt for the ant-
FIND OUT MORE Listen to Tweet of the Day: eaters’ cylindrical droppings left on
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08slxsy rockery stones or garden furniture –
they twinkle with shiny inedible wing-
cases and crumble like cigarette
Q HORNET ash in your fingers.
GET INVOLVED Join the BTO’s Garden
WEIGHTY WASP BirdWatch project: www.bto.org/gbw
Just as plane spotters can tell an
AirbusA380 super-jumbo from its
engine noise,there’s no mistaking the
low drone of an approaching hornet.
This social wasp is,as writer Roger
Deakin said,“dauntingly big”.Yet the
mild-mannered workers seldom sting
people.Their deep yellow and warm
brown coloration is handsome,too.In
southern England,keep an eye out for
non-native dark-bodiedAsian hornets,
first seen in 2016 in Gloucestershire.
FIND OUT MORE Learn about Asian
hornets at www.nonnatives g g

UK HIGHLIGHTSK

The essential wildlife events to enjoy this month, compiled by Ben Hoare.

Q COMMON BLENNY
HIDE
HIDE AND SEEKAND SEEK
bee: Michel Rauch/Photoshot; bat: Paul Hobson/FLPA; hornet: Dav d Kjaer Rob n,woodpecker & sea aster: Dav d Chapman; butterfly & b enny: Laur e Campbell; sought-after prizes. The common blenny,
Rockpooling sessions with friends or
family bring out the inner child in all of
us, with glimpses of fish among the most
or shanny, is seldom more than 13cm
long but does an excellent job of hiding
under the tiniest overhangs or in dark little
crevices. Lacking scales, it has a slimy
coating that enables it to survive out of
water – you may even spot one perched
poolside on a rock, mudskipper-style.
TOP TIP Britain’s top rockpooling hotspots:

8 www.wildlifetrusts.org/rockpooling August 2017
BBC Wildlife