Swifts

Though Swifts only spend 3 or 4 months each Summer with us, while they are here they bring spectacular aerial action and excitement to our urban lives! Swifts rely on buildings for nesting sites, but post-1945 buildings are often unsuitable because the techniques and materials used in modern buildings (and refurbished buildings) deny Swifts access to breed. Add in the fact that insects are declining, and our Swifts are faced with threats to both their food source and nesting sites.

This blog features presentations from two Swift specialists, that will explore the biology and ecology of these fascinating birds, before highlighting the threats that our Swifts face and what we can do to help them.

Swifts and their Ecology

Edward Mayer (Swift Conservation)

The Common Swift (Apus apus) is an impressive bird that migrates to and from Africa each year, can fly up to 69 miles per hour and does almost everything while flying – sleep, eat, bathe and mate. This presentation explores their biology, ecological role and behaviour. We’ll also delve into their spectacular migratory journey across vast distances and discuss their seasonal strategies, including migration and breeding, providing insight into how these unique birds interact with the temperate and tropical environments and contribute to the UK’s biodiverse ecosystem.

Swift Threats and Conservation

Cally Smith (Huntly Swift Group – NES Swifts)

Between 1995 and 2016 we lost over half of all the Swifts breeding in the United Kingdom. Our swifts are under threat from both declining insect populations (aka Swift food) and a loss of nesting sites due to changes in how we seal up buildings during construction and refurbishment. Cally will take us through the threats that our Swifts face and what we can all do to provide nesting opportunities in our homes, community buildings and workplaces.

Q&A with Edward Mayer and Cally Smith

Edward Mayer first became fascinated by Swifts at the age of six when he saw these amazing birds flying above his home in Southampton. He has been in love with them ever since. In 2003 he pioneered an approach to preserving the future of the Common Swift through advice, talks and the encouragement of widespread volunteer action. He studied the efforts of Swift experts in Germany and began his work by creating “London’s Swifts” an internet-based advice service focusing on how to preserve existing nest sites and create new provisions. It was such a success that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds asked him to make it a national service and “Swift Conservation” was born. It soon started to receive appeals for help from enthusiasts in Europe, so Edward widened its scope to cover Europe too.

Cally Smith set up the Huntly Swift Group – NES Swifts in 2017 to address the decline in Common Swift numbers. The group’s activities include engaging local communities, school visits, conducting Swift surveys and advising both local authorities and local builders.

What do Swifts do at night?

Edward: They fly at night, we still do not know if they sleep like we do, go into a sort of automatic-pilot guided trance, or stay partly or mostly awake. So far it has been impossible to put an ecephalograph onto a Swift’s head to record its electrical brain activity, but we expect to be able to do something like that quite soon. Studies with radar have shown that Swifts ascend at dusk and descend again at dawn, and spend much of the night in flocks high in the sky. Studies in Holland have shown that they can descend at night to feed on swarms of insects over freshwater bodies illuminated by moonlight. But that is pretty much all we know so far.

What insects do Swifts eat?

Edward: Briefly, anything without a sting that they can get into their beak. Typical prey items include aphids, gnats, mosquitos, small beetles, hoverflies, flies, flying ants, and mayflies. They are opportunistic feeders and go for everything flying that is available, wherever it is accessible above ground level, even up to several thousand feet up.

What can we do to help Swifts apart from installing swift boxes? 

Cally: There are a number of things that we can all do:

  1. Survey your own patch in June and July, August and find active swift nest sites.  These are precious colonies (however small) which must be protected. 
  2. Lodge your findings (check and record where YOUR local planning authority accesses environmental records so they flag up in local planning applications) Note of explanation, if i may: Sadly, not all building repairs will go through the planning process, they may be private upgrades (a man and a ladder), in which case you have a very difficult time of preventing losses once the homeowner has paid for and erected scaffolding and you realise there is a problem unless it is in the breeding season in which case you contact the WCO losing on the popularity stakes but maybe saving a colony!!!! Otherwise, your Planners should be an important ally, so RECORD.  
  3. Keep a vigilant watch for threats to known colonies.

Do droppings cause an issue where Swift boxes are installed?  

Cally: Not if used only by swifts as they consume their own droppings inside the nesting site and they don’t sit at the nest entrance and poop!  IF the box/brick is used by other species there may be some dropping (publish that if you want to!)  It is relatively easy to follow guidelines for siting boxes and still avoid directly over walkways etc if it’s a concern.  Personally, unless I am reinstating an active nest site like for like I would nearly always install nest boxes on the side or rear of a building for aesthetic reasons (following guidelines of course for exposure).

Are there any specific Swift bricks that you recommend?  

Edward: The Action for Swifts and Ibstock Swift bricks, both designed by Swift experts, both made here in the UK, and both with good records of success.

Cally: OMG too tricky!!  One size does NOT fit all.  Action for Swifts S Brick – great for brick/stone builds and retrofits.  The Vivara Pro/ Schwegler (and similar) is good for block-built new builds or rendered situations.  Action for Swifts’ half brick entrance piece is great for bespoke situations.

What is the one recommendation that you’d make to anyone who wants to help Swifts?  

Cally: Survey and record Swifts in order to protect long-standing colonies! It’s important that sitings of Swifts are fed into the system so check with your local swift group or Local Environmental Record Centre to find out the best way to record Swifts locally so that records will be considered within the planning process.

Edward: Learn all you can about them and talk about them and the wild world in general to your friends, neighbours and colleagues. The great problem with wildlife conservation is people’s ignorance. Apart from enthusiasts, people seem to see wildlife as an optional extra, nice but not essential, fun to watch on TV but otherwise not so important, just a bit sad to see it all dying out, and they think that “nature” is something that can be stuck on a “reserve” and left to get on with it, job done, rather than the essential ingredient for our continued existence here on this planet. Yes, in theory, one could live in a sterile pod on Mars and eat synthetic food for the rest of one’s days, but one would soon go stark-staring mad and probably have to be drugged up to the eyeballs to keep one from suicide. And it’s the wild world that effectively produces the air and water and conditions for growing the food that we need to live. No wildlife = realistically, no humanity.

Useful links

Recording Swifts

Swift Nest Boxes

Event Partners

This blog was produced by the by the Biological Recording Company as part of the Tayside Biodiversity Partnership Biodiversity Towns, Villages and Neighbourhoods project.

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Gardening for Bats and People

Hear how to create the ideal nocturnal space for bats and people! Learn what elements you can use to make gardens perfect for our bats, while also providing calm, beautiful spaces for people to enjoy connecting with nature.

Q&A with Jo Ferguson

Jo Ferguson is an urban ecologist and Principal Consultant working for the Bat Conservation Trust and Greengage Environmental. She has over 20 years of experience in both voluntary and professional sectors, from practical land management to ecological consultancy, both in the UK and abroad. She is passionate about creating a provision for biodiversity, particularly bats, within the built environment and helping people connect with nature in their own backyard!

Do different species of bats feed on different species of insects?

Yes, they are evolved to hunt in a certain way for different types of insects so they can exploit this niche as a feeding resource as much as possible. For example, slow-flying species, such as the brown long-eared bat, have big ears and quiet but detailed focused call to hunt moths. These woodland bats can even detect moths that are not in flight and pick them off leaves due to their sensitive hearing. It’s a bit of a war of attrition and bats are these fantastic hunting machines. There has also been some evidence of brown long-eared bats eating oak processionary moths from analysing their droppings.

On the other hand, faster flying species such as soprano pipistrelles and common pipistrelles hunt along the edge of habitat and dash out for really small flies, the type that hatch in waterbodies.

Because bats feed on a range of different insects, encouraging them in to your garden means bats can help with suppressing insect species attacking your plants!

Is bat box occupancy impacted by how many bird boxes are nearby?

There are a lot of bat boxes out there so it can depend on the design of the bat box. We would recommend a design that doesn’t allow bird access because some birds, such as Blue Tits, can get into small spaces and are aggressive enough to put bats off using the same area. For example, the Kent Bat Box design is open at the bottom and there’s no area to nest (bats don’t require any nest materials). Placement is also important as bats prefer positions that heat up in the sun. So if in doubt, pair your bird box on the cool side of a tree or a wall and pop a bat box on the warm side, and then the birds will go in their preferred habitat, and then you won’t get that clash.

Is a bat box for roosting in summer or only used for hibernation?

Bats will use different areas for summer roosting and hibernation. We usually recommend putting bat boxes on warm walls (or trees) for when bats are active in the summer months. We do have evidence of bats using bat boxes in winter for hibernation but they require cool, humid and constant conditions that can be difficult to achieve in an unsheltered bat box. The biggest issue we have is there’s not a lot of evidence of where some of our most common species go so it’s difficult to replicate conditions. They’ll tuck themselves away for months at a time somewhere cool and humid, traditionally places like inside a rubble filled wall of a barn or church. However this habitat has been lost in many areas, therefore there is no harm providing bat boxes on a range of elevations to give bats the best chance of finding somewhere to roost all year round.

Is it illegal to move or remove a bat box once it is installed?

Bats are protected by law so disturbing them and destroying their roosts is illegal. However, bat boxes can be moved with the right specialist advice if there is a need to, to protect the bats. For example, where bat boxes have been put up in a tree for roosting provision and then years later a tree needs to be removed for safety reasons. It’s all about making sure that bats are not harmed and that this resource is not lost, which requires getting specialist advice to for example, check boxes are empty but then the resource is relocated again nearby.

Are LED lights good for bats?

LED lights are just a type of lighting. You can get blue-rich LED lighting with UV content that is attractive to insects (and therefore harmful in the environment) and you can get warmer LEDs that don’t have this component so is less impactful. It’s important to remember though that no lighting is ‘good’ for bats, bats are nocturnal and are perfectly suited to completely dark habitats so we should be mindful any time we think about adding lighting to our gardens. The first question to ask therefore is, do we need lighting at all? If so, where should it be directed to ensure it does not disturb habitat, how long does it need to be on for and how little lighting is actually needed to do the job intended. There is loads of great guidance on our website or if in doubt, seek out specialist advice.

Where do bats roost in trees?

Bats are looking for trees that provide features for them to roost in such as splits, cracks, crevices and hollows, therefore more mature, deciduous trees tend to be better in providing these resources, species such as Ash and Oak for example.

What is the best bat detector for absolute beginners?

In terms of getting started, the Magenta Bat Detector is a nice entry-level device that is simple to use, you can often get them second hand – I’ve had mine for years. I’d recommend coupling this with a basic field guide, then it’s simply getting out there to hone your skills and enjoying connecting with nocturnal nature! 

Literature References

Further info and links

Go to the Wildlife Gardening Virtual Symposium page

Learn more about British wildlife

Check out our events on Eventbrite

Garden Bird Feeding: Impacts, Challenges and Trade-offs

Garden bird feeding is a key and beloved form of human-wildlife interaction. Although generally positive for the people doing it and perceived to be helpful for bird conservation as part of wildlife gardening, this may not always be the case in reality. Here we will explore research on the impacts, challenges and trade-offs in garden bird feeding as currently carried out in the UK.

Q&A with Dr Hugh Hanmer

Dr Hugh Hanmer is a Senior Research Ecologist for the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) Terrestrial Ecology team. His research primarily focuses on urban ecology and avian demography using long and short-term citizen science surveys alongside novel field surveys. He has a particular interest in the impacts of and human-wildlife interactions around garden bird supplementary feeding, first started during his PhD at the University of Reading and continued at BTO.

What is the optimal frequency for feeding garden birds?

Every garden is different, so there isn’t an optimal frequency for putting food out. However, if you are going to put out food, what we do recommend is avoiding putting out excess food which will change with the conditions and seasons. For example, finch trichomonosis potentially survives better in damp conditions so if you have lots of food out there in damp feeders, then you could well be having an unintentional negative effect. Putting less food out but topping it up more often could be better. This also makes it easier to clean feeders regularly which we recommend doing as often as practical, with weekly being a good target to aim for, alongside cleaning water baths and disposing of split food.

Does attracting small garden birds also attract predators?

Sparrowhawks are our main native small garden bird predator and may be attracted to bird feeders, although this is difficult to prove in practice. However, in general they are not believed to have a significant impact on small bird populations and if anything, small bird populations numbers are expected to drive Sparrowhawk numbers which have declined in recent years.  Domestic cats are another predator that can catch garden birds and those population is not affected by natural prey availability, so it is important to consider the placement of feeding stations out of reach of cats and close to cover to help birds evade predators in general.

Alongside direct predation risk, there is also some evidence that by feeding birds during the breeding season, we attract more potential nest predators into the area and increase the risk of nests being predated.

Will providing food in winter cause garden birds to struggle in spring during breeding when there could be insufficient natural food available?

Again this is hard to test directly but as far as we can tell no, or at least not at a scale that matters, and it’s important to remember that supplementary feed is only generally a relatively small amount of most birds diet under normal conditions. However, competition for suitable breeding territories and sites may be of more concern. For example, the potential impact of more dominant Blue Tits and Great Tits surviving the winter, on more subordinate Marsh Tits and Willow Tits which use feeders less, may have contributed to their population declines.

Should we restrict feeding garden birds to period where food is particularly scarce, such as during freezing weather?

Potentially and this is what was done in the past. That’s probably where you can have the biggest impact, and it may well be better. For example, it may reduce potential disease transmission because it’s not suitable for some pathogens in those conditions either.

Literature References

Further info and links

Go to the Wildlife Gardening Virtual Symposium page

Learn more about British wildlife

Check out our events on Eventbrite

The Impact of Wildlife-friendly Gardening on Butterflies

Much advice and information is available on gardening for butterflies yet very little of it is evidence-based. This talk will present recent research by Butterfly Conservation showing the impacts on butterfly abundance and species richness of two commonly recommended wildlife-gardening practices: leaving the grass to grow long and having flowering ivy.

Q&A with Dr Richard Fox

Dr Richard Fox has led Butterfly Conservation’s work on recording changes to the UK’s butterfly and moth populations for over 25 years. Having published 80 scientific papers and contributed to many television and radio programmes, Richard has in-depth knowledge coupled with a passion for communicating his fascination for these iconic insects.

Did you use data from other sources in your research?

This piece of research was only based on species sightings from Butterfly Conservation’s  Garden Butterfly Survey. Butterfly Conservation, of course, runs many other schemes which provide vital data to support conservation work and ecological research. We’ve previously shown scientifically that the data from our Big Butterfly Count (aimed at anyone and everyone) shows very similar trends to the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (undertaken by more experienced butterfly recorders). Butterfly sightings are also gathered by other organisations and scheme and we try to make sure that these data are all linked up.  BTO, for example, gather butterfly data as part of Garden Birdwatch and have used these data to carry out research on how butterflies are faring in gardens.

What can we do to encourage more butterflies and other pollinators into our gardens?

There’s lot of advice out there for encouraging more butterflies and moths into your garden but for both groups, the important thing is to make sure you are creating breeding habitat by providing food for caterpillars. The decline of butterflies and moths in the UK is driven by the loss of breeding habitat so anything you can do to get moths and butterflies breeding in your garden is beneficial. The simplest things to do are not to be too tidy in your garden – neatness is the enemy of nature. As highlighted in my talk, letting some grass grow long and allowing  ivy to flower are both proven to benefit butterflies. Planting native shrubs will provide homes for many moths, such as micro-moths whose caterpillars mine the leaves of Hawthorn, Hazel, willows and Field Maple, and Brimstone butterflies will lay their eggs on buckthorns.  Not using pesticides is another obvious step that will help garden wildlife from butterflies to hedgehogs.

Is a more diverse selection of plants better than having a lot of one type of plant?

Many butterfly and moth species are very particular at the caterpillar stage. So while the adult insects will drink nectar from lots of different flowers, their caterpillars will only feed on specific parts of specific plants.  So, diversity is going to be the best thing, especially with native plants. This means encouraging herbaceous plants by letting “weeds” grow in your long grass and planting native shrubs and trees, which you can always keep relatively small by pruning, if you are short of space.

What is the ideal mowing regime for a wildlife-friendly garden lawn?

We don’t have any scientific data on this from our study, but in order to create suitable breeding habitat for butterflies, moths and other wildlife by letting the grass grow long then at least some long grass should be present throughout the year. This is because many insects will still be present and some still active during the winter among the long grass. Indeed, some common butterfly caterpillars, such as Meadow Brown, will continue to feed on long grass through the winter. So, cutting all of the long grass in your garden at once is likely to be harmful for wildlife whatever time of year you do it. On the other hand, of course, long grass does need to be cut from time to time, otherwise it will transition into scrub (e.g. brambles) and ultimately woodland. I’d recommend cutting half of your long grass each autumn and leaving the other half, so that each part gets cut once every two years. You may need to tweak this depending on your local conditions, but always make sure there is some long grass left as a refuge at all times. Also, always remove the cuttings (to reduce soil fertility) although, if possible, leave them for a day or two so that any seeds can fall and any invertebrates can escape.

Literature References

Further info and links

Go to the Wildlife Gardening Virtual Symposium page

Learn more about British wildlife

Check out our events on Eventbrite

How To Optimise Our Gardens As Habitats For Hedgehogs

Dr Hedgehog will present her research on the different challenges hedgehogs face when sharing habitats with humans and residing in our gardens. She’ll discuss what we can do to make our gardens more hedgehog-friendly, and thereby improve the conservation initiatives directed at this beloved and declining species.

Q&A with Dr Sophie Lund Rasmussen

Dr Sophie Lund Rasmussen (aka Dr Hedgehog) is an expert on European hedgehogs and is a research fellow at Linacre College and the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) at the University of Oxford. She has worked dedicatedly with hedgehog research and conservation since 2011.

What is causing the rural decline of hedgehogs?

Yeah, well, definitely the intensified agricultural practices we’ve seen develop through decades is, of course, affecting hedgehogs. I would really like to look into the diets of hedgehogs even more. I have 800 poo samples in my freezer ready for analysis, but I just need the funding to analyse them.

Does the danger with roads mean that we shouldn’t encourage hedgehogs into urban parks?

We at least need to educate the different town councils to provide green corridors for dispersal for the hedgehogs to make it safer. And people can also encourage their town city councils to buy hedgehog crossing road signs, so any hotspots for traffic injuries could be highlighted.

Are the levels of pesticides that you’ve measured in hedgehogs lethal?

The issue is that we don’t know what the lethal dose for hedgehogs would be, because the hedgehogs are not tested as they’re a protected species. We therefore have to use other species, such as rats, to guess based on the levels on pesticide detected. And in some cases, the doses of rodenticides would have been lethal. We are now looking at the organs of these hedgehogs (such as the liver and kidney) to see whether we can see any changes caused by these pesticides accumulating. But it’s an ongoing process and it requires more funding.

Can you recommend any robotic lawnmower brands that have already been approved as being hedgehog safe?

There are definitely models that are more hedgehog-friendly than others and I would encourage you to look at my publications. You can find them on the website: www.drhedgehog.org.

Literature References

Further info and links

Go to the Wildlife Gardening Virtual Symposium page

Learn more about British wildlife

Check out our events on Eventbrite

Wildlife Gardening Virtual Symposium

The UK, like most other countries worldwide, has seen significant loss of its plants, animals and fungi. The State of Nature reports that the UK is now one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth, with species declining by an average of 19% over the past 50 years. This makes nature-friendly gardening more important than ever as our gardens can provide a haven for the wildlife that visit or reside within them.

Wildlife Gardening is now a popular approach, with members of the British public trying to do what they can to give our wildlife a helping hand. This also makes it a business opportunity, with pollinator seed mixes, insect hotels and bird feeders commonly stocked throughout garden centres and online retailers.

But how do we know that our wildlife gardening practices are actually beneficial for nature? The management of habitats that aren’t informed by scientific evidence is at best a matter of hearsay, and at worst, can be misinformed and counter-productive. The Wildlife Gardening Virtual Symposium provided a platform for scientists researching wildlife gardening to share their work and help us all take an evidence-based approach to how we manage our gardens for wildlife.

Speaker Programme

This event featured four presentations from conservation specialists:

  1. How To Optimise Our Gardens As Habitats For Hedgehogs with Dr Sophie Lund Rasmussen (University of Oxford)
  2. The Impact of Wildlife-friendly Gardening on Butterflies with Dr Richard Fox (Butterfly Conservation)
  3. Garden Bird Feeding: Impacts, Challenges and Trade-offs with Dr Hugh Hanmer (British Trust for Ornithology)
  4. Gardening for Bats and People with Jo Ferguson (Bat Conservation Trust)

How To Optimise Our Gardens As Habitats For Hedgehogs

Dr Sophie Lund Rasmussen (University of Oxford)

Dr Hedgehog will present her research on the different challenges hedgehogs face when sharing habitats with humans and residing in our gardens. She’ll discuss what we can do to make our gardens more hedgehog-friendly, and thereby improve the conservation initiatives directed at this beloved and declining species.

Check out the full blog here

The Impact of Wildlife-friendly Gardening on Butterflies

Dr Richard Fox (Butterfly Conservation)

Much advice and information is available on gardening for butterflies yet very little of it is evidence-based. This talk will present recent research by Butterfly Conservation showing the impacts on butterfly abundance and species richness of two commonly recommended wildlife-gardening practices: leaving grass to grow long and having flowering ivy.

Check out the full blog here

Garden Bird Feeding: Impacts, Challenges and Trade-offs

Dr Hugh Hanmer (British Trust for Ornithology)

Garden bird feeding is a key and beloved form of human-wildlife interaction. Although generally positive for the people doing it and perceived to be helpful for bird conservation as part of wildlife gardening, this may not always be the case in reality. Here we will explore research on the impacts, challenges and trade-offs in garden bird feeding as currently carried out in the UK.

Check out the full blog here

Gardening for Bats and People

Jo Ferguson (Bat Conservation Trust)

Hear how to create the ideal nocturnal space for bats and people! Learn what elements you can use to make gardens perfect for our bats, while also providing calm, beautiful spaces for people to enjoy connecting with nature.

Check out the full blog here

Wildlife Gardening Updates

Steve Head from the Wildlife Gardening Forum provides a brief overview of news relating to wildlife gardening for the previous year or so.

Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum’s garden reopened in July with a focus on urban wildlife, although the geological half has got much more media coverage. Their new Urban Nature Project looks very interesting, with new techniques of eDNA and sound analysis being rolled out.  With the Angela Marmont Centre’s community focus it looks to become a significant urban ecology player. Their Nature Recording Hub encourages people to collect and submit their own garden data.

UK butterfly emergency declared

Butterfly Conservation recorded 2024 as the worst ever Big Butterfly Count results. 80% of species are down, including garden favourites like the holly blue.  At least partly due to weather, but the kind of headlines we don’t want.

Importance of common species and gardens

Ken Thompson’s typically excellent book  “Common or Garden: Encounters with Britain’s 50 Most Successful Wild Plants” extols the much greater importance of common species than the rare ones that stamp-collecting-minded naturalists get so worked up about.  e.g. for ragwort: If it were rare, ragwort would undoubtedly be the object of dedicated conservation, but it’s too common for its own good. This is backed by a paper in March in Biodiversity and Conservation from London lawyer Rob Amos – common species are more ecologically important than rare ones but are failed by rarity-biased international conservation regulation.

A  “staggering “ diversity of >1100 spp was recorded in one small Australian garden in one year although it had 97% non-native plants.  This provides strong backup to the Jennifer Owen results that effectively started the Wildlife Gardening Forum!

Importance of moths

Two papers this year have opened our minds on how significant pollination is by moths, especially the abundant noctuids. In the case of bramble, moths visited more than bees, and nighttime pollen deposition was greater than daytime.  Ecologists really do need to turn off the telly and get out more at night! A cartoon published in New depicted two birds in a tree looking down at a hairy ecologist with the caption “Ah – the first ecologist of Spring”.

Continuing with the moth theme, an amazingly simple experiment that at last showed why moths fly to light.  They use low sky light above them to help orientate in flight, and so keep their backs to a point light source and spiral into it. People have been arguing about moths and light for years!

People believe what they would like to believe

Wood Wide Web – connectivity and communication between trees due to fungal hyphal connections. Because its a fun and freaky story, this has been hugely promoted in media but hard-nosed examination of the evidence published this year shows the evidence base is very weak. People like to believe what they find appealing.

Likewise, the evidence for the mass media story of “insectageddon” stubbornly refuses to be quite as bad as some would have us believe. There was a paper this year on 50 years of change in macro-moths in Flanders. About 1/4 of species have declined, 1/4 have increased, and the rest are either stable or no clear trend. But a clear signal of climate change: Holarctic species have declined Mediterranean species have increased.

COP meetings generally failed to make needed progress

COP29 UN Climate Change conference was held in a major oil exporting country. Agreement on financial help to developing countries was reached, but seen as wholly inadequate, and did nothing towards consensus on reducing emissions.

COP16 Biodiversity was rather better with many countries submitting biodiversity targets, ensuring the contribution of indigenous people, and some financial pledges. There was also finally recognition of the importance of fungi.

Climate change evidence mounts

Mentioned changes in species balance in Flanders with southern species replacing northern ones.  We MUST reconsider “native” bias in UK conservation because some of them will be lost and need appropriate replacements.

In the UK, leaf break in spring is now about 16 days earlier than in the 2001 benchmark year. Big impacts on phenology of flowering plants in south of Iberian peninsula – more flowering now in early winter. Buglife reported Bumblebees nesting in winter– high risk.

Looking ahead

Government plans 1.5m new homes by 2029, with mandatory local targets, release of green belt land and changes to National Planning Policy Framework. Introduction of “grey belt” land as “that part of green belt that doesn’t strongly contribute to green belt purposes”.

Expect more development on brownfield sites – which include very biodiverse areas AND established mature gardens.

More support for low carbon energy e.g. windfarms onshore. Protection for peat bogs and fens

Changes will support climate change mitigation  – but no suggestion of incorporation of better biodiversity standards in development, only minimising impacts.

Creating resilience in our gardens has to be an ongoing theme.  RHS featured flood prevention with gardens as sponges last year and this, but we also need to consider the unpredictable climate impacts of extreme drought, flooding, winds and even frost.

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How Many Moths and Butterflies? The Importance of Taxonomy

Lists of species make very boring reading, but taxonomy forms the infrastructure on which biological sciences depend. We need names for creatures in order to talk about them and distinguish between them. Immigration and extinction are important concepts, especially when we are faced with climate change and habitat destruction.

Q&A with Dr David Agassiz

Dr David Agassiz is a lifelong student of moths and butterflies, made more focused when switching careers at around 50 to learn about their ecology. He is now a Scientific Associate at the Natural History Museum and one of the authors of A checklist of the Lepidoptera of the British Isles (2nd Edition).

Is there an international convention on the taxonomy and naming of species?

Yes. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) acts as adviser and arbiter for the zoological community by generating and disseminating information on the correct use of the scientific names of animals. The ICZN is responsible for producing the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature – a set of rules for the naming of animals and the resolution of nomenclatural problems. There is a separate International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants.

How extensively have UK moths and butterflies been sequenced?

Charles Godfray at the University of Oxford and his colleagues at the Natural History Museum have been working on this and have got a barcode for most, but not all, the British species. The Darwin Tree of Life project aims to sequence the genomes of 70,000 species of eukaryotic organisms in Britain and Ireland, and has sequenced many butterflies and moths.

What do you see the main changes being to future editions of the checklist?

A lot of species have been analysed and most of the species splits that are going to crop up probably already have. So I don’t think there will be many more splits for European Lepidoptera due to them being relatively well studied. How many extinctions there will be is another question! There are such low numbers now you wonder when there might be a sudden collapse and that is an anxiety.

It is possible, that we will see more butterflies from Africa, but Africa is divided by the Sahara. Sub-Saharan butterflies have to be very mobile in order to fly over to get into the Palearctic region. Lepidoptera from the Middle East and Eastern Europe are more likely to spread this way with the changing climate.

Does light pollution from the many moth traps across the UK impact on local moth populations?

Light pollution is very bad news for the moth populations. However, the light pollution from moth traps is minimal compared to the lighting from other sources, such as cities, houses, roads, streets, etc.  

Literature References

  1. Agassiz, Beaven & Heckford (2024) A checklist of the Lepidoptera of the British Isles (2nd Edition): https://www.benhs.org.uk/publications/brit-lep-checklist/
  2. Randle et al (2019) Atlas of Britain & Ireland’s Larger Moths: https://www.naturebureau.co.uk/atlas-of-britain-irelands-larger-moths

Further Info

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