Western Morning News (Saturday)
Nature’s lesson in wildlife watching
By slowing down and observing more carefully, CHARLIE ELDER enjoys some interesting finds he might otherwise have missed
The more you learn about nature, the more it teaches you.
And there is one broad lesson that wildlife watching delivers again and again: slow down, take your time.
Stop, look and listen may sound like the old Green Cross Code, but it pays dividends when it comes to enhancing one’s appreciation and understanding of the natural world around you.
And on a visit to the Devon coast on a sunny day last week I realised, as I have so often before, that I have a lot to learn – especially when it comes to playing spot the difference.
I had gone in search of one lookalike, and ended up with three other conundrums to figure out, the highlight of which was a characterful kind of insect that is well worth getting to know.
A few months ago I wrote in this column about a trip in search of a rare and iconic Westcountry bird – the cirl bunting.
This star of the conservation cause, which has bounced back from the brink of extinction thanks to concerted conservation action, is a close relative of the yellowhammer, and most easily found in scrub along the south coast of Devon.
It looks very similar to the yellowhammer, sharing the canary-yellow plumage. However the males sport a striking black chin and eye stripe, and the song is a simpler rattle.
Paying a return visit to the coast path in South Devon it wasn’t long before this rattle caught my ear as I wandered along the top of a field overlooking the sea. There, perched on a wide, south-facing thicket of thorny vegetation, was a male cirl bunting, belting out his song in the morning sun. A lovely sight – and a lot easier to find than when I had visited the area in the quieter month of October.
A coast path is an invitation to get hiking, but given I had plenty of time and no company fidgeting to stretch their legs, I decided to stay put and simply see what I could find in this small flower-freckled field and along the shore.
Interesting how patience paid off. The longer I waited, the more I saw – linnets, chiffchaffs, goldfinches, small copper butterflies, a kestrel hunting overhead… Species I might have missed if I had been plodding along the path.
I was pleased to spot a common whitethroat in the thicket, as I don’t come across them where I live on west Dartmoor. And then another slightly plainer and greyer one popped up with a different song, before disappearing into the foliage.
Great, I thought, as I walked slowly to the end of the hedge. Then I stopped, and the realisation dawned: hang on a minute, birds which look and sound different are actually different birds! This was no common whitethroat, but a lesser whitethroat – far less common, certainly in this part of the
country. They are a pretty similar pair, but I had jumped to conclusions.
And I made the same mistake half an hour later when I spotted a curlew foraging among the rocks exposed at low tide. Always a wonderful bird to see, and this one was especially fetching, even if varying a little from the norm judging by the curve of its beak and light and dark stripes on the crown of its head.
Excellent, I thought, picking up my bag to move on. Then I stopped, a question prompting me to raise my binoculars once again: aren’t curlews which look different to curlews actually not curlews? This was its scarcer twin, the whimbrel – a wader which only breeds in the UK in such northerly outposts as the Shetlands.
Both birds were teaching me to slow down, pay attention to differences, to observe more carefully.
And this location offered up one more interesting lookalike, which I have saved describing until last because if I had started out talking about flies, well, I doubt many would have even begun reading this feature, let alone got this far.
But this is no ordinary fly – honest.
I spotted the curious critter hovering with wings whirring and pointed proboscis sticking out at the front as it fed from flowering ground ivy. Covered in dense brown fur it looked similar to a bumblebee – and the name implies that it can’t make up its mind. This was a bee-fly.
They are strange looking insects, buzzing balls of energy that make one do a double-take: What on earth is that?
And, given their characterful and cute charm, they have won people over – with sightings shared on social media and a special national bee-fly recording scheme set up.
Despite the pointed spike at the front, through which they suck up nectar, they are perfectly harmless to us – though less so to bees, as their life-cycle involves flicking eggs into the nests of solitary wild species where their emerging larvae feed on bee grubs.
We have four main varieties, and the most widespread and largest is the dark-edged bee-fly, which is active in spring and, as the name suggests, has a dark front edge to the wing
– though given these are a blur in flight one has to wait for it to settle to get a proper look.
The smaller western bee-fly, which has clear wings and light brown hair covering the body, is on the wing in late spring and summer and mainly found in the South West and Wales. And the similar-looking heath bee-fly, sporting a slightly whiter tail and head end, is rare, with Dorset being one of its strongholds, where it can be seen in the right habitat during late summer. Looking at the one before me flying from flower to flower I assumed it was the common dark-edged bee-fly which I see from time to time in my garden, and I turned my attention to a butterfly nearby. But something drew my eye back to the busy buzzing fly – its unfamiliar chestnut brown and black rear end – and I took a few photos, determined not to be caught out again.
Returning home I examined it more closely, and checked with images online. I could see from the darker tail and spotting on the translucent wings that it was the fourth of our bee-fly species, the dotted bee-fly.
Not only was it a new species for me, but also one that is not common in the Westcountry, with a very patchy distribution. Actually quite a decent find, and one I might have missed if I had relied on initial impressions before rushing impatiently to search for something else.
Just like the lesser whitethroat and whimbrel, it turned out to be the scarcer of lookalike pairs. I had been rewarded by simply pausing and looking more closely.
And of all the classrooms, this coastal field bathed in sunshine and filled with wildlife and its myriad puzzles could not be bettered. The perfect spot to stop, look, listen – and learn.