For bird lovers and watchers, attracting birds with food is not enough – they also need water. Apart from the need to drink water, they also love to bathe and play in it. Keeping a birdbath around your house will attract all kinds of beautiful birds. There are different birdbaths, but many people prefer solar […]
Tag: features
On the trail of the large tortoiseshell, the UK’s most elusive butterfly
It was, joked Matthew Oates, a “lunatic fringe” mission. Scouring the hedgerows for the caterpillar of a butterfly that has been extinct for more than half a century might not be most people’s idea of fun, but Oates, a National Trust naturalist, has spent 50 summers tracking down the most elusive British butterflies. I joined […]
Cat wars break out in New Zealand
Plan to prevent felines from killing much-prized native birds causes consternation. Call it the Kiwi cat wars. In the island nation said to harbour more cat owners per capita than any other country, a furore has broken out over a crusade to eradicate man’s second-best friend. The charge is being led by Gareth Morgan, a […]
New to nature No 103: Tinkerbella nana
The family Mymaridae includes more than 1,400 species of diminutive insects called fairyflies. They are not flies at all, but tiny wasps that deposit their eggs inside the eggs of other insects. Most of these parasitoids are found in tropical latitudes and the southern hemisphere, where they attack unborn offspring of true bugs, beetles, flies, […]