Go wild – your
The County Times has teamed up with the Sussex Wildlife Trust to bring you monthly questions and answers about all things nature.
Charlotte Owen, Wild Call officer at Sussex Wildlife Trust, is on-hand to answer your wildlife and conservation queries. As well as answering a variety of wildlife queries, Charlotte is eager to receive your Sussex wildlife sightings.
Wild Call provides fact sheets ranging from how to make bird cake to beachcombing and can offer advice on environmental and planning issues as well as the best ways to help wildlife flourish in your garden.
To talk to Charlotte, call 01273 494777 between 9.30am and 1pm on weekdays, email wildcall@sussexwt.org.uk, write to Wild Call, Sussex Wildlife Trust, Woods Mill, Henfield, BN5 9SD or visit www.sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/wildcall
Why do birds sometimes fly into windows and how can I help prevent this?
Birds have adapted to many man-made hazards but glass remains a significant problem for them, and it’s easy to see why – even we humans manage to walk into a glass door occasionally.
Birds often make the same mistake, either because they don’t realise there’s an invisible barrier in their flight path or because they’ve been tricked by confusing reflections.
A pane of glass can act just like a mirror, reflecting trees or sky so that birds think they can fly straight through. Some birds seem more accidentprone than others.
Pigeons and doves are common window casualties, not because they have poor eyesight but because of the way their eyes are positioned at the sides of their heads.
This gives them excellent wide-angle vision to keep an eye out for predators but it means that they aren’t as good at seeing what’s straight in front of them.
That’s when you’ll hear a sickening thud or discover a dusty wing-print on the window.
Most birds will recover from a low-speed collision and may fly off straight away but sometimes they really knock themselves out, and collisions can be fatal.
If you find a dazed bird, gently pick it up and put it in a secure, ventilated cardboard box somewhere warm, dark and quiet.
Leave it alone for an hour or two so it has a chance to recover. If it does, you can take the box back outside and open it so the bird can move away in its own time; if it doesn’t, you’ll need to contact a wildlife rescue or local vet.
Thankfully, it’s easy to help prevent birds crashing into
windows by putting stickers on the glass, especially if you have a ‘problem’ window that birds seem to hit on a regular basis. The stickers need to be on the outside of the window to be most effective (otherwise the reflections will obscure them) and bright colours are most visible to birds.
Inside, a net curtain or blind will help.
After dark, artificial light can also cause bird collisions so it’s best to draw the curtains as soon as you turn the lights on.
What is the biggest mammal in Britain?
Of the 107 mammal species found in and around the British Isles, the largest land mammal is the red deer.
This unmistakeable icon of the Scottish highlands can also be found as far south as Richmond Park in London and there are even some in Sussex, grazing the wild land of the Knepp Estate. A majestic stag can stand up to 4.5ft tall at the shoulder and weigh in at 225kg. Their antlers alone can weigh 5kg, each growing up to a metre in length.
But the largest mammal of all is the grey seal, with bulls weighing up to 300kg and measuring a good 2.5 metres in length. Grey seals spend most of their time out at sea feeding on fish but return to land to rest, where they will haul out on a beach or estuary to sleep and digest. Globally, the grey seal is one of the rarest seal species and about half the world’s population lives in British and Irish waters, with the occasional visitor making an appearance off the Sussex coast.
I always call these toadstools but what’s their proper name?
The infamous fairy-tale toadstool, with its bright red cap and little white spots, is properly known as the fly agaric. It belongs to the genus Amanita, a motley crew of dangerous yet enticingly beautiful fungi that have tempted people throughout history to dice with death.
Their names all convey warnings, from death cap to panther cap, fool’s mushroom and destroying angel.
Fly agaric may seem tame in comparison but it is toxic and can induce mind-bending hallucinations. The name reflects its historical use as an insecticide, when small pieces were crumbled into a saucer of milk to create a poisoned lure for passing flies.
Going back even further, fly agaric was used by shamans and druids to induce euphoria and commune with the spirit world.
Legend has it that the tradition arose in northern Europe when people noticed reindeer acting strangely after eating red mushrooms. Putting two and two together, they tried eating the intoxicated reindeer to experience the effect for themselves.
Bizarrely, this may be the origin of some of today’s Christmas legends and traditions, including flying reindeer and nocturnal gift deliveries.
Long ago, in the depths of Arctic winter, Siberian shamans would visit people’s homes to deliver gifts of magic mushrooms on the winter solstice. They often dressed in red and, if deep snow blocked the doorway, they would enter via the yurt’s smoke hole on the roof, sliding down the central birch pole. On this basis, perhaps Rudolph’s red nose was in fact a mouthful of mushrooms.