Recent weather has not been very good for finding fungi, however recent days have seen a marked improvement and things are starting to move. Tony discovered a local rarity, Hericium ericaeum (Lion’s Mane), in a wood in south Liverpool. This species is usually found in the south and south west of England, with very few records in our region. A great fungi find!
Local naturalist, Dave Owen, discovered a Giant Lacewing (Osmylus fulvicephalus) at Sankey Valley Country Park. This locally rare species has only been sighted once in St.Helens, back in 1988 at the Goyt woodland, Carr Mill about a mile and a half north of Sankey Valley Country Park. Hopefully more of these very impressive insects can be recorded in our area and we can begin to learn more about their distribution!
The cold 2021 spring and early summer seems to have had an impact on some of our garden butterflies – so far in 2021 nearly all of the 13 species, monitored as part of the British Trust for Ornithology’s (BTO) Garden BirdWatch (GBW), are being seen in fewer gardens and are also appearing later than usual.
Too early for most of the traditional fungi with gills but still a lot of interesting bracket fungi to be appreciated.
The allure of garden feeders has transformed the biology of a bird that visits Britain and Ireland for the winter. New research involving the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), Oxford University and the Max Planck Institute, and just published in the journal Global Change Biology, provides further evidence of how humans are shaping the natural world through simple changes in our own back gardens. Increasingly mild winters and abundant garden bird food has led Blackcaps to establish new migratory routes, lead more sedentary winter lives, and perhaps even modify their anatomy.
The City Nature Challenge is back for 2021. Between 30 April and 3 May we’re taking part in this global initiative to collect information about the wildlife flourishing in our urban areas.
The latest BirdTrends report, published by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) provides valuable information on the changing status of the UK's bird populations. Updated annually, this year’s report is especially significant in that it provides an early indication of one of the periodic revisions of the UK's “Red List” due to be published at the end of this year.
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