Archive - 2004 - Story

My favourite Christmas present this year was Lucy.

I was given her as an adoption gift from London Zoo. She is a Sulawesi Crested Macaque and although she has a rather stocky ape like appearance she is actually a monkey. Latin name Macaca nigra meaning 'black monkey' , these macaques are endangered. I don't know what her real name is but I have called her Lucy which seems to suit her. The downside of adoption is that she isn't allowed to come and stay ;o).

Feeling the need to walk off the excesses of Christmas day we took a walk up Roseberry Topping in the North York Moors. The site is managed by the National Trust and there is a convenient car park next to a pub in Newton under Roseberry. Setting off in the afternoon the sun was low in the sky and casting a reddish glow over the landscape. For the most part the sky was clear but with occaisional dark cloud creating quite a spectacular sight.

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A scan of various wildlife discussion lists has produced some interesting stories. A swarm of crickets was reported taking over a Newcastle to Cardiff train resulting in passengers fleeing. The full report is reproduced in the discussion forum. Whilst the event isn't really a natural phenomenom (it seems they originated from a bag on the train and were destined for some exotic pet) there are some slightly strange goings on with butterflies and dragonflies being reported in December still. If you have spotted any wildlife appearing at unusual times of year let us know about it in the uk nature and wildlife discussion forum.

After patiently waiting for Google to index my pages I have noticed that few of the forum posts are being indexed. I am in the process of applying some fixes to change this. If you find any of the links are not working or that the forums are not working please let me know ASAP.

We walked up and down Beacon Hill in Leicestershire. There was a good selection of fungi there although I didn't have time to set up the tripod so most of the photos aren't that good quality. I thought this fungus might be Iconotus dryadeus. Colin Duke [UKWildlife] informed me however that these are more often found on oak (whereas this is clearly on birch). He has identified it as Blushing Bracket (Daedaleopis confragosa). The underside was really quite interesting and looked like a piece of coral. Apparently if you brush the gills they turn a pinky red colour hence its name.

There is a new reserve in Leicestershire called Cossington Meadows. It is an area of former gravel pits that was taken over earlier this year by the Leicestershire & Rutland Wildlife Trust. There are great improvements in the site already compared to what it looked like last year.

Took a quick walk in Narborough Nature Reserve this morning near Swaffham in Norfolk. It is owned by Norfolk Wildlife Trust and managed by Butterfly Conservation. It runs along a section of a disused railway that ran from King's Lynn to Swaffham. The chalk embankment is rather similar to what you might expect further south. Unsurprisingly for this time of year the flowers were looking a bit sorry for themselves but there was still a reasonable number of plants of scabious. I think the scabious in the pictures are field scabious (Knautia arvensis).

Had a walk on Hampstead Heath in North London last weekend. Things were very autumnal although it was a wonderful morning with blue sky and some interesting cloud formations. The Heath was very busy and there wasn't much bird life to be seen.

We found a couple of unhappy looking insects that didn't appreciate the cold. Firstly (below left) a bush cricket that had its tail between its legs!! It did after a while start walking along but it seemed very sluggish. I believe it is an Oak Bush-Cricket (Meconema thallasinium) and true to its name it was found beneath an oak tree. You can hear the calls of bush crickets on this site about Cornwall.The second insect was a caterpillar I have not yet identified but again it seemed half frozen.

A new section has been added to the UK Nature pages. It is a nature diary - a record of wildlife encounters throughout the year. If you are able to identify any of the species photographed please post the IDs in the comments link below. Read the nature diary here.