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Living with predators

I REMEMBER WELL THE FIRST TIME I saw a ‘proper’ wild predator. I was driving through the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in Mexico when I spotted a jaguar. He wasn’t fully grown, but he was nonetheless magnificent. I can still recall every second, 23 years later.

Q & A

Surprisingly, yes! While we usually think of toads as slow and lumbering animals, it appears they’re capable of climbing to great heights. A recent study of nest boxes and tree cavities in Britain found 50 common toads sitting comfortably up in the trees, with one as high as 3m above ground. A toad’s arboreal adventures are probably much more frequent than you might imagine, given that the same study recorded 94 blue tits, a common sight on tree branches.

Go wild

Your guide to getting closer to nature this month.

WILDID

www.field-studies-council.org/shop

The crossword

ACROSS 8 Corvid that might be carrion or hooded (4) 9 Australian coastal bird in the family Psittaculidae (4,6) 9 Australian coastal bird in the family Psittaculidae (4,6) 10 Reproductive part of a flower (6) 11 Long-extinct reptile (8) 12 Larva of a geometer moth (8) 14 Middle East country, important as a migratory flyway […]

Photo club

During the salmon run at Brooks Falls in Alaska, the brown bears often look rather bewildered as a conveyor belt of ‘sushi’ comes flying past. There are so many fish and most are missed, but just occasionally a bear will catch one in mid-air. It was a glorious summer’s day and this bear had three fish leaping up the falls at the same time. Only two made it past his open mouth!

Snap-chat

With BBC Wildlife editor Tom Gilks.