Q&A
Is the brown hare Britain’s worst parent?
About
70 species of butterfly have been seen in Britain. That total is frustratingly low compared to other northern European countries – Sweden, say, has around 120 species. All our butterflies colonised after the retreat of the last great ice sheet, about 15,000 years ago. When the ice melted, rising sea
How come Britain doesn’t have more butterflies?
levels flooded the Doggerland land bridge to the continent and created the English Channel, and for most butterflies the 43km-wide Dover-Calais strait is too big a barrier. Only a few strong-flying, adventurous species, such as the painted lady and clouded yellow, can manage it. The map butterfly and the European swallowtail are potential colonists in the near future, but most butterflies move only a few hundred metres from their hatching grounds. Butterfly colonisation is more likely to be through the horticultural trade – the South African geranium bronze was a near miss in 1997.
Among British mammals, if we’re talking about quality time with offspring, the brown hare has to be up there as one of the worst offenders. Though we tend to think of ‘mad March’ hares ( females boxing unwanted advances from males), these mammals breed any time from December to September. Up to four leverets are born after a gestation of about 42 days. Almost as soon as the youngsters arrive, their mother abandons them. Their days are spent alone, lying motionless in vegetation. As night falls, the leverets regroup to await a visit from the female, who returns to suckle them for just a few brief minutes. After a month of her hands-off parenting, the young hares are weaned and left to fend for themselves. But while this parenting style may seem lacking, the minimal contact helps prevent predators such as foxes tracking the leverets down.
With
fewer people out and about this spring, our birds found a quieter, cleaner environment. Species that sing louder beside busy roads, such as great tits and song thrushes, could sing more quietly. Ground-nesting birds won’t have been flushed by walkers and dogs as often, so their eggs will have been less at risk. The winners are likely to include skylarks, lapwings and curlews on farmland, and beach-nesting species, such as little terns, oystercatchers and ringed plovers. Some rare birds – raptors especially – will have been more vulnerable to illegal persecution, due to lack of protection by conservation staff, but likewise will have been helped by fewer people wandering near their nests. In the long term, garden birds will benefit from the boost to monitoring – the BTO’s Garden BirdWatch survey enjoying record participation during lockdown.