{"id":17016,"date":"2022-05-27T14:20:41","date_gmt":"2022-05-27T12:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/?p=34205"},"modified":"2022-05-27T14:37:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-27T12:37:23","slug":"british-wildlife-in-june","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/british-wildlife-in-june\/","title":{"rendered":"British wildlife in June"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Ben Hoare\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 27 May 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Enjoy summer nature and wildlife across the UK and Ireland with our guide to what different species are up to now.<\/p>\n

Chequered skipper butterfly (Carterocephalus palaemon<\/em>)<\/h3>\n
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Chequered skipper basking on common bluebell flowers. \u00a9 Oliver Smart<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

June is the flight season of one of Britain\u2019s rarest butterflies \u2013 the chequered skipper \u2013 and you can now visit its English reintroduction<\/a> site for the first time. The species died out in England in 1976, but has made a triumphant return to Northamptonshire\u2019s Fineshade Wood<\/a>. Be patient, keep to marked paths, or attended a guided walk<\/a> run by Butterfly Conservation,<\/a> and you may see a fast-flitting male pause among the grass.<\/p>\n

European storm petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus<\/em>)<\/h3>\n
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European storm-petrel in the Algarve, Portugal. \u00a9 Robin Chittenden<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Being tiny is no barrier to life at sea for a bird. The storm-petrel is roughly the size of a sparrow<\/a>, making it the smallest seabird nesting in Britain and Ireland, yet it covers huge distances, deploying an extraordinary sense of smell to locate floating food. At sea it will often follow in the wake of ships.<\/p>\n

Only the urge to breed brings this inveterate ocean wanderer ashore. Its colonies are on remote islands, which it visits after dark, avoiding moonlit nights to escape marauding gulls and skuas.<\/p>\n

Storm-petrel breeding seasons are long \u2013 the female lays a single egg in May, hatching is in July, and the chick takes its maiden flight in September or October \u2013 but difficult to observe. So researchers are using sniffer dogs to find the burrows, which have a musky aroma. In summer 2021, the canine helpers proved for the first time that petrels are breeding on the Isle of May, in the Firth of Forth.<\/p>\n

Thrift (Armeria maritima<\/em>)<\/h3>\n
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Swathes of thrift carpet the Manx Shearwater burrows at Skomer Head on Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK. \u00a9\u00a0Drew Buckley<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Coastal cliffs, so bleak and forbidding in winter, now blush as thrift \u2013 also known as sea thrift or sea pink \u2013 erupts into bloom. The salt-tolerant plant clings to clifftops and the tiniest ledges, where its baby-pink flowers dance to and fro in sea breezes \u2013 the classic setting for photos of nesting puffins and fulmars. Thrift also flourishes on salt marshes, an even harsher environment for plants.<\/p>\n

Water shrew<\/a> (Neomys fodiens<\/em>)<\/h3>\n
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A water shrew in Norwich, Norfolk, England, UK. \u00a9 Robin Chittenden<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

The water shrew is perhaps our most mysterious mammal. Dominic Couzens, in his mammal-ogue My Family and 50 Other Animals<\/em>, calls it \u201ca shrew in a dinner jacket\u201d, an apt description of its smart pelage: mole-black above and silvery white below.<\/p>\n

June is said to be when the female gives birth, though the species\u2019 exceptional shyness and preference for well-vegetated ponds and ditches means sightings are rare. (Many reports are recordings of its ultrasonic squeaks, picked up by bat detectors.)<\/p>\n

The water shrew\u2019s many adaptations to an aquatic life include a hairy tail and extra-dense fur for buoyancy, and hairy feet for swimming. It is carnivorous, unlike the shoot-nibbling water vole \u2013 and this is where its two secret weapons come in handy. The enamel in its red-tipped teeth is strengthened with iron, and it has venomous saliva potent enough to subdue small fish and frogs.<\/p>\n

Stag beetle<\/a> (Lucanus cervus<\/em>)<\/h3>\n
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A male stag beetle. \u00a9 Robin Chittenden<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

The stag beetle \u2018rutting\u2019 season kicks off in May and is in full swing until early July. Males do battle with fierce-looking serrated mandibles as they try to shove their rival aside, or even better, flip him upside-down. You\u2019re more likely, however, to spot these magnificent 6\u20137cm beetles (Europe\u2019s largest) as they clumsily buzz around in search of females.<\/p>\n

Both sexes are lured to light and have a tendency to clang into lit windows or outside lights after dusk. Like many adult insects, they don\u2019t live long, so you may also find their spent bodies. Most of their living, and most of their eating, took place underground as wood-munching grubs.<\/p>\n

Stag beetles are restricted to southern England in areas with old broadleaf trees and warm, sandy earth for the females to lay eggs in. The People\u2019s Trust for Endangered Species<\/a> monitors them through its annual Great Stag Hunt, which, like other citizen-science surveys, enjoyed record participation during the coronavirus lockdowns.<\/p>\n

The majority of sightings came from Greater London, with other beetle hotspots in Essex, Surrey, Sussex and the New Forest.<\/p>\n

Water crowfoot (Ranunculus aquatilis<\/em>)<\/h3>\n
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Water crowfoot. \u00a9 Laurie Campbell<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Water crowfoot is one of the home-grown stars of the BBC\u2019s epic The Green Planet<\/em><\/a>, in which Sir David Attenborough takes to a boat to explore the crystal-clear waters of the River Avon in Wiltshire.<\/p>\n

He visits in June, peak flowering season for this pretty plant, a white-petalled member of the buttercup family. Its floppy stalks create a lush tangle of foliage just beneath the surface, but as Sir David points out, this poses a problem: how will the flowers be pollinated?<\/p>\n

Water crowfoot\u2019s solution is to become both a water plant and a plant of the air. Masses of stiff flowering stalks appear, which lift the carpet of blooms clear of the river. The display can be spectacular on chalk streams such as the River Avon, though these are sadly among the planet\u2019s rarest and most fragile habitats. Of the 260 true chalk streams on Earth, 224 of them run through the English countryside.<\/p>\n

Black slug (Arion ater<\/em>)<\/h3>\n
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A black slug on gorse, surrounded by bell heather. \u00a9 David Chapman<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Maybe we should learn to love slugs<\/a>? Even the Royal Horticultural Society<\/a>, traditionally no friend of garden molluscs, has vowed to stop calling them pests. After all, one can hardly blame slugs for sliming towards the abundance of juicy new seedlings at this time of year, sweet peas and beans being particular favourites.<\/p>\n

Only\u00a0a quarter of Britain\u2019s 40 or so slug species chow down on garden plants anyway. And some of those, including black slugs, prefer rotting material, so are happier in compost heaps. By recycling nutrients, they play a key part in healthy ecosystems.<\/p>\n

Admit it \u2013 black slugs look smart too (some can be orange or brown), with a beautifully grooved body often offset by a frilly orange \u2018skirt\u2019. We may as well admire these 150-million-year-old, one-footed hermaphrodites, and leave it to frogs, beetles and hedgehogs to control their numbers.<\/p>\n

More on slugs and \u2018pests\u2019<\/h4>\n