Category Archives: Conservation

Book reviews, Conservation

Lomborg, False Alarm, 2021

Lomborg, Bjorn. 2021. False Alarm: How Climate Change panic costs us trillions, hurts the Poor, and fails to fix the planet. Basic Books, Hachette Book Group. Originally  published in July 2020, also as ebook, and as a First Trade Paperback Edition in October 2021. 321pp.  ISBN 978-1-5416-4747-3 & 9 781541 647473.  $22.99.

This later edition has a long epilogue which, within the year of publication had to bring it up to date with the fast moving events following COVID-19. Lomborg’s earlier, controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist, Measuring the Real State of the World (CUP, 2001) went into ten reprints in one year.   Not that everyone likes to reminded of the facts and figures of climate change, but a different interpretation is always welcome. The stats speak for themselves but not everyone really puts them all together like Lomborg.  The author is not a climate change denier, far from it. He is a visiting Prof at Copenhagen Business School, a visiting fellow at Stanford and has been named as one of the 100 ‘Most Influential People of the World’. He knows his stuff and is authoritative with it because he is a statistician at heart; he was an Ass Prof of Statistics at The University of Aarhus in Denmark when he wrote the Skeptical Environmentalist. He deals in published data and incorporates the salient facts and conclusions into his work, so this book is full of supporting graphs and diagrams to illustrate his points – all of which are backed with references to published data.  You have to be committed to read all through his book as it is hugely scientific and not necessarily for the general public who would find it complicated.  The book was being finished off during the Covid epidemic but Lomborg quotes various papers that showed that the decline in the use of cars during lockdown did not have a significant effect on climate change. He states ‘Everything learned over the course of the COVID-19 epidemic has reconfirmed the basic message of this book. Just forcing us to do with less is not the solution, not in the rich world and certainly not for the world’s less well off.’, He is adamant that we need to solve five issues ‘to get our focus back’ which are i) increased carbon tax, ii) green innovation (the most important), iii) adaptation, iv) geoengineering, and v) prosperity.  He holds great store in President Biden’s promise of $75 billion a year for green R&D which could be ‘a real game changer.’  He analyses the truth about the EU’s stated bold commitment to reduce emissions by 55% (from 40%) in 2015. This shows he says ‘good intentions’ but the cost of $1.5-$5 trillion to achieve the actual tiny benefit of ‘postponing global warming by just two weeks’ by the end of the century shows it ‘is a blatantly bad idea.’ There are plenty of topics to investigate by delving into this book for instance on extreme weather events, where Lomborg compares the various extreme events in the US with the GDP, and finds that these events  are ‘causing less suffering in terms of deaths and in terms of GCP’.  With flooding and hurricane events Lomborg discusses the ‘Expanding Bull’s Eye Effect’ where, say an area’s housing expands by 58% over 20 years (actual example) a repeat of a similar flooding example will seem to be significantly greater, when the degree of flooding has perhaps stayed the same. The book is in five sections, The climate of fear, The truth about climate change, How not to fix climate change, How to fix climate change and Tackling Climate Change and All the World’s other challenges.  It is a good but necessarily scientific book with plenty of straight forward arguments informed by published data. Lomborg is a regular Tweeter so you can follow his day to day tweets on how he interprets the living world during the current energy crisis.  

Book reviews, Conservation, Insects

Silent Earth by Goulson 2021

  

Silent Earth, Averting the Insect Apocalypse, by Dave Goulson, Published by Jonathan Cape, London in 2021. (imprint of Vintage which is part of Penguin Random House, London.) 328pp. Hardback £20. ISBN 978-1-787-33334-5  &  9 781787 333345  A review:

Hot on the heels of other books on the impending disaster to affect the wildlife world we live in, this is another that adds to the debate. It seems that lockdown has had a positive effect on the productivity of all authors. But this assessment of the decline of insects is from an academic for consumption by the general public. And he is good at it, converting scientific facts, arguments and counter-argument into some interesting discussion. The author is Prof.  Dave Goulson, lecturer at the University of Sussex, who, when he is not writing books, looks after freshers giving them a tour of the campus to assess their readiness to understand the living world, identifying the common birds and the bees (which they do very poorly). His lecturing circuit of about 40 lectures a year allow him to assess audiences, and he agrees that talking to primary school schoolchildren is more fulfilling as they pay attention and are enthralled, compared to secondary pupils. He sees a drift of grey hairs in some of the older audiences and they also are more keyed into what is happening. He says that about 90% of the population could not care less about the environment, and he is right, possibly higher. This is however a flaw in his halting the apocalypse. Will they all respond?

There are five sections of the book, Why Insects Matter, Insect Declines, Causes, Where are we headed? and What we can do? in all 21 chapters. Each chapter is quite short and succinct and reads without giving specific references (making the text a better read), but the references are at the back of the book under chapter headings if anyone wants to fact-check Goulson’s comments and threads.  The author draws on his own academic published work, and his travels around the world making observations.  Having just reviewed McGavin’s audio book on insects (All Creatures Small and Great), both authors have used the same published work, whether it is the German experience of declining insects or the Knepp experience of wilding, and drawing on the quoted works of Carson, EO Wilson, Fabre, Monbiot or Attenborough.  It is surprising how there is a relatively small body of work on declining species out there, that everyone quotes. The difference with this book and the others is that Goulson supports all his commentaries with graphs and scientific evidence – almost, but not quite, at the level of a textbook. Most pages are enlightening, and the book can be dipped into to get a different flavour. There are at least ten books I have around me here on the impending Armageddon and the story is the same, the relatively few references the same, Carson being the first key witness.

So where does Goulson really stand. He is an optimist. He says on the flyleaf ‘it is not too late for insect populations to recover’. Attenborough also says that on television. That does not fit comfortably with the 90% who do not care less. Even the sub-title is optimistic ‘averting the insect apocalypse’. Topically he has one chapter on life in the future after the apocalypse several decades on, and another chapter on how to get things right before the apocalypse, education, involvement at local level and getting involved in politics. Goulson also muses on Rumsfeld’s ‘knowns and unknowns’ and ‘unknown knowns’ in the biodiverse insect world. He also has a chapter on ‘Bauble Earth’ about light pollution and effects on wildlife, also very topical at the moment.

Goulson is a bee expert and he often refers to his other books (three out of five on bees and bumblebees) and one has the feeling that one should have read his The Garden Jungle before writing this review as he often refers to it.  His appraisal of the effects of neonics on bees is excellent. Curiously, various vignettes on the peculiarities of a handful of insects are placed at the end of the chapters, not related to the subject matter, but the tiniest peek into the world’s biodiversity that we might loose, such as the earwig with two penises if you have ever seen it in the first place.   With the insect world in Britain of 27K species these are not key to the message of the book, and therefore a distraction, perhaps an entrée into the bizarre world of biodiverse insects for a new book?

Book reviews, Conservation, Insects

Insects by McGavin 2022

All Creatures Small and Great. How insects make the World.  An audiobook written and narrated by Dr George McGavin. MP3 (14 hours). Published by WFH Original (W.F. Howes), £16.99   ISBN: #9781004073344    Link on Audible: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/All-Creatures-Small-and-Great-Audiobook/B09RC5CCYP   A review:

 

For those who have not come across George McGavin on the radio or on the TV he is a passionate, if not unique spirit of ecology who now works in the media but was once a lecturer at Oxford. We learn a lot about the life of McGavin, an early interest in bugs in Edinburgh from the age of 12 through to his latest tribute to the parlous state of insects worldwide. In some ways I thought this was a promo for The Royal Entomological Society (RES) as it so insect-centric (which I applaud) and one of its nine guest contributors is the president of the RES, Prof. Helen Roy – a ladybird authority. But insects rule the world with their complete mastery of numbers and diversity and put other classes to shame in biodiversity. McGavin says confidently that they will be around on Earth well after our own demise. Therein is the issue that grips McGavin throughout this audiobook. The relentless decline in species, that McGavin reminds us several times that he has experienced in his lifetime. We all have.  You can feel that he feels wounded as an entomologist that his subjects are disappearing, even species that could be useful that will become extinct before they are discovered (a very familiar and true refrain) with steady on-going rainforest loss that no one seems to be able to stop. He does not refrain from speaking the truth, whether it is rainforest loss just to grow new crops (oil palms, soya), burning peat for shooting, cutting verges or ‘unnecessary street lights’.  One of his most animated interviews is with the inimitable fly-centric Dr Eric McAlister particularly on the fruit-fly – 60% of whose 15.000 decoded genes are found in humans (a common ancestry) which cause cancer, offering hope for remedies for various diseases. He calls the fruit-fly ‘arguably the most important insect in the world’ – vying with the house fly as the most dangerous.  Like many TV reporters he asks many questions such as why and how we got into this mess, where have all the insects gone, and so what if they go extinct? But he does give answers. He talks to Sir David Attenborough to see if he has any answers to which he is told that he receives 50-70 letters a day, mostly, now from concerned youngsters. Attenborough’s solution is to i) individually do not waste food, space, fuel, paper etc, ii) that those who have an elected voice should appreciate the international point of view of the worldwide dilemma and do something, and iii) that that there is a need to get politicians to set out remedial measures.  Maybe we have all got it wrong, McGavin invokes Genesis 9.7 ‘be fruitful and multiply’. Yes, says McGavin we have done that, and spoilt the world. We have become complacent and here McGavin says that we have all fallen into the ‘Shifting Benchmark Syndrome’ where the gradual decline of species (example Passenger Pigeon) is easily missed and extinction occurs. He laments his windscreens not being encrusted with a pâté of insects, something we have all noted, and now wonder where they all went.  40% of all insects are now threatened with extinction towards an Eco-Armageddon. There have been mass extinctions before, 250yrs ago at the end of the Permian ‘The Great Dying’ but that was because of acidification of the oceans and gross volcanic activity. Insects at that time did not become widely extinct. Now we are told we are ‘in the middle of a mass extinction event’ the Anthropocene, during this The Age of the Human.  With difficulty we must triage what to save, which insect species we need to save.  We are told by Prof. Philip Stevenson (Kew Gardens) that two out of five plants are now currently at risk of extinction. There is discussion on over-production of food, that an area the size of China produces food that is wasted each year, and that the energy and greenhouse gases to produce it could be saved.  There are moments in the audiobook that McGavin reverts to describing in detail the autecology of various species, such as the honeybee (excellent account), the cochineal beetle, the stag beetle, the galls of oak trees or the Colorado Beetle – all a background for a younger audience, and harking back to this lecturing days.  He gets very annoyed at the phrase Save the Planet when the planet is actually fine, it has looked after itself OK for the last 4.5 billion years and insects in general are always OK. As a good storyteller, McGavin tells us of his adventures mothing in Papua New Guinea where he is ‘ecstatic’ by the diversity of moths to his moth trap, or under the clear skies of Africa. McGavin gets us up to date with neonicinoids in the environment and their potential effects on honeybees. A lot of what he says is backed up with reference to recent research. He quotes E.O. Wilson (we all do) and John Muir; he talks about ‘bee vomit’ (honey) from honeybees and the ‘insect spittle’ (silk) from the silkmoth now extinct in the wild. These descriptions are very appealing to youngsters, and to this end the book is pitched for a very general audience from children right up to all adults interested in the natural environment and what is happening to it, even ecologists, entomologists and naturalists.  There is a very good section on ‘A Natural Pharmacy’ (the audiobook is full of named sections) where the plant world is shown to be a natural pharmacy of useful ‘secondary plant substances’ or scientifically as Prof Philip Stevenson says are ‘Secondary Metabolites’. This is an area much to my own interest especially with the suite of carotenoids and their overlooked importance in inverts and humans.  Much discussion is had on caffeine which in concentration is antagonistic or a deterrent to honeybees (for instance) but in dilution appears to be a stimulant to improve the bee’s carrying out its pollination duties.

There is measured frustration in McGavin’ s voice that the message of the insect decline is not being heard or heeded, as we have all been banging on about this for decades. There have been other voices before about the loss of habitat, such as Marion Shoard, Norman Moore, Graham Harvey, and more recently Elizabeth Kolbert on the 6th extinction and Dave Goulson (with his Silent Earth), but McGavin’s is more a more direct and approachable, well-rounded interpretation, as always backed up with scientific evidence, even though the truth is not heeded.  This topic needed to be aired as an audiotape (14 hours), even if it’s dark message that can be listened-to during a long car journey through a clean windscreen. It has great educational value and should be required ‘reading’ for all schools.

 

Dr John Feltwell (Naturalist Dr John Feltwell has visited New and Old World rainforests and has written over 40 books including his own on Rainforests, conservation, global warming etc).

Book reviews, Conservation

Meadows by Peterken 2013

Meadows by George Peterken. No. 2 in The British Wildlife Collection. 2013. Bloomsbury Wildlife. 431pp  ISBN 978-1-4720-60344  &  9 781472 960344  RRP £35.00  A review:

There are now 11 volumes in Bloomsbury’s Wildlife Collection and a fine series it is. This is an early one written by an authority on woodlands and flowers. Peterken worked originally for the Nature Conservancy (NC), and then he was part of the Chief Scientist’s team at the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) that became English Nature (EN) and now Natural England (NE) – a fine pedigree to discuss the importance of meadows. This is a very pleasing and satisfactory book that is particularly comprehensive at well over 400 pages.  It feels like the author was given a free hand to include everything about meadows.  He starts out to define what exactly is a meadow and how other authors, including myself (Meadows, 1992) have included all possible interpretations of meadows.  Peterken states that meadows are technically ‘grasslands that are mown for hay, ‘which means they must be ‘shut-up’ in spring and allowed to grow without grazing until they are cut in summer’. Peterken tends to err on the importance of ‘grasslands’ in his interpretation of meadows, as this is where meadows tend to fall in the strict and official classification of British plant communities. However, there is no official classification directly for meadows per se.  The National Vegetation Classification (NVC) has acronyms for each type of grassland, and as Peterken says ‘the majority of meadows fall within MG5..’ but there is so much variation depending on the soil chemistry – limestone, clay etc.  Field botanists and ecologists will know what this means, and the names of the applicable wildflower species that designate each classification, but members of the general public will not. There is no glossary. There are over 50 references to NVC categories like MG5, but this reflects the serious side of grassland classification espoused by John Rodwell in his series of volumes, which Peterken follows. Meadows actually occur across several volumes as ‘meadows’ are actually only a description, or descriptive turn of phrase, about a collection of species describing one sort of habitat that we all subjectively like. Peterken could get bogged down in the minutiae of particular acronyms but he does not. There is however less room for the popular side of meadow creation in this book, which is now practiced widely privately and in public places. So, it was no surprise that the work of Dame Miriam Rothschild and her infectious enthusiasm and her influence on The Prince of Wales and his meadows is not mentioned.  Also the inspirational work of wildflower seed purveyor Donald MacIntyre and Emorsgate Seeds which has coloured many a motorway embankment and municipal parks across the country for all to see, for the last few decades is not mentioned.

 There are 15 chapters whose titles range from the meadow flora, classification, origins, making hay, diversity , ‘birds, bees, butterflies and other fauna’, ‘loss and survival’ and ‘looking forward.

The author comes out with the classic quote of 97% decline of meadows in England and Welsh lowlands up to the 1980s following the published work of Fuller in 1987. So this book celebrates meadows of which only 3% are left. He describes how they are so precious that many SSSIs have been created round them, and how increasing habitat destruction and  ‘improvement’ has led to their continued demise.  Thus, for the last few decades one has been dabbling in the conservation of just the 3% of remaining meadows and wondering how beautiful the countryside used to be. One also wonders if the 3% has been diminishing. No-one seems to be quantitatively charting any further demise. However Peterken does mention new agro-schemes for meadow enhancements across the countryside as well as many effective community initiatives, so all is not lost, and the quantum has remained the same, perhaps, or gone up? Re-wilding is mentioned around the scientific debate about what Neolithic meadows might have been like and the theories of Frans Vera (2000), but there is otherwise no mention of the present enthusiasm of re-wilding / wilding, and the often-mentioned Knepp Estate (West Sussex), where meadows are always part of any ecological or enhancement mosaic. 

The book is not entirely UK-centric, for the chapter on European meadows brings in discussion of meadows from Estonia, the species-rich alpine rich meadows of Ecrins National Park in France,  Switzerland, Moldovia, and Transylvania in Romania. We learn more about colourful wood-meadows, wet-meadows and litter-meadows, the variety of hay ricks, hay cocks and different ways of scything. Continental meadows are often extremely rich, arresting and beyond anything seen in Britain, but Peterken is sceptical….’that, contrary to the myth, not all Continental meadows are wonderfully floriferous.’ … ‘many are generally only grass-rich, with limited colour’. Some may disagree.

 One of the chapters in the book is about ‘Translocating meadows to the colonies’ and here Peterken describes the familiarity of visiting New Zealand with the British introduced grasses, wildflowers and bumblebees, or the progress of early settlers in east and west North America with their meadow endeavours. He deals with butterflies in meadows well, where he charts each species according to the various classification of meadow types. I am sure the butterflies appreciate being put into tidy boxes, but at the same time it does reflect their very important and pernickety food preferences reflecting their essential ecology.   Nearly all the well-known named meadows are mentioned, such as Cricklade, Lugg and Oxford meadows, and the range of colourful wildflower meadow plants that we all love and associate with meadows are in the book, even Lady’s Slipper orchid that few see in Britain. The book has a wealth of fine photographs of meadows and details of certain species of botanical associations. I like the old black and white photos of male-dominated hay-making teams, and the mixed teams, and of course pictures of haystacks always remind us that 97% of meadows are now gone. There are References and indexes to wildflower species and subjects – overall a fine treatise and unlikely to be surpassed.

 John Feltwell

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

 

 

Book reviews, Conservation, Insects

British Moths by Lowen

British Moths, A Gateway Guide, a field guide to the common moths of Britain and Ireland.  2021. Bloomsbury Wildlife. 224pp. £15.29 on-line.   Ring-bound and e-edition available. ISBN 978-1-4729-8738-9    9 781472 987389   A review

My review copy arrived just after the Saharan dust arrived on 16 March 2022 and I had installed the moth trap to see which North African moths had hitched a ride to the UK.  So I got out this book and tested the identification. The book is arranged seasonally, that is to say if you are starting to trap moths in 2022 then it begins helpfully with ‘Spring Moths’ – and yes a lot of the moths were present and easy to identify.  The author has illustrated pages such as ‘chestnut-brown noctuids’ and ‘beige and reddish-brown noctuids’ and ‘spring-like quakers’. The noctuids are a big and diverse group and there are many overlapping and confusing features thrown in with individual variation, so many of the similar-looking species are a nightmare for moth newcomers. The ring-bound nature of the book is good for use in the field when opening a moth trap and examining species in the presence of fascinated ‘mothers’.  Although the UK list of moths is about 2,500 species, this book includes 350 species of the most common and eye-catching species. Some of the common micros are also included. The standard of the close-up photographs is good and the identification features are shown in the photos with precise annotations. James Lowen is already a Bloomsbury Wildlife author who also written ‘Much Ado About Mothing’ (also in 2021). Lowen comes out with some intriguing categories for the ever-confusing noctuids through the seasons, where he calls them ‘Little Brown Jobs’ – referring to the ornithological parlance for difficult avifauna. In comparison, birds are easy to identify, moths are so much more difficult and more appropriate for the epithet.  Moths have taken diversity to a completely different level. The whole range of common moths are included from hawk-moths, emeralds, waves, pugs, footmen, tigers, sallows and underwings. At the beginning of the book there is a section on the joy of moths, how to see moths, and how to identify moths. There is a subject index, but no glossary or further information. There are other moth identification books that go into much greater detail, but this is a neat, useful and trap-side identification book in full colour, which is fits nicely into a jacket pocket, and is recommended for all beginners and amateurs who venture into the great world of moths.  No, no Saharan moths graced my trap, but many local common moths were present and the book was found to be useful.   John Feltwell.

Conservation

House Martin Love Story

Guests of Summer, A House Martin Love Story. By Theunis Piersma. Thetford, BTO Books. 115pp.

First published by Bornmeer as Sweltsjesbfan Gaast in 2004. Undated but published 1 March 2016 Foreword by Ian Newton. ISBN 978-90-858-157-0-9   9 789085 815709  A review:

 First published in Frisian, this book is an English translation of the second version in Dutch, but who would know. It reads incredibly well and there are no awkward phrases; great work by the translator.

The book is an entirely house martin-centric book, written by a house-martin-centric author who is also a professional birder, so other species are mentioned (rarely) only by way of comparisons or setting the scene for the demise of avifauna. The author lives in the wetland-rich area of the Frisian countryside of northern Netherlands and the book centres on life in the village of Gaast and the intimate goings-on of house martin behaviour in the parish. They do quite a lot of nest hopping, even rape, but then that is probably altruistically better for the species in terms of getting their genes abroad.   Going abroad is however the problem of where do the birds fly too exactly?

I love the chapter on orcas since the striking black and white colours of house martin remind the author of the colour scheme of orcas, quite so says I, and reminds me of my own book on ‘Black and White in Animals’ (2019) which incidentally figures a partial albino barn swallow whose genetic material has been possibly been interfered with by radiation from Chernobyl.  Piersma says that ‘house martins and orcas look alike’ that they ‘live in their own shadow’ because of their colour scheme, and that house martins take prey from below because of it.

But back to this love story.  The book is written as 29 vignettes, or chapters, of information, which tell a sequential story of the life of the house martin through the eyes of villagers, whose observations about the sounds, solicitations and facial peeps from the nest mean so much – as Piersma tries to interpret. The birds are clearly conscious of us, people, and react accordingly. Interpreting the facial expressions of their little faces in the nest does require a lot of field work sitting around in a chair!

I don’t think I have reviewed a book with such short chapters. This is completely different oeuvre where often a small but highly relevant piece of ecological information is played out in a short chapter. The way that it is written is incredibly enthralling. Ian Newton says in the Foreword that wherever you dip into the book  ‘there is interesting stuff’. I completely agree.  It is a complement that the author, a scientist has been able to write very clearly without being burdened with scientific jargon, and it is immensely readable.  I have now reviewed a few hundred books so I do find it very accessible and completely different to any other natural history books. It should be a requirement of all scientists to write a hugely interesting and popular account of their research subject without using complicated jargon, and in this case without Dr. Piersma referring to his 400 scientific publications.

For the British reader there much to enjoy. Piersma sets the scene whereby Friesland was connected to England via the ‘Mare Friscum’ as shown in his map for the period 600-800 AD.  He makes bird and human connections between East Anglia (the Sutton Hoo site) where there is Anglo-Saxon overlap in languages and DNA.  Swallows would have been in the buildings, but not particularly house martins, they were on cliffs. Gilbert White’s opinion on overwintering martins is discussed. In terms of answers we have not moved on a lot. We still do not know exactly where all the martins go for winter.

The book is mostly about house martins, but there is a lot about sand martin, barn swallows (the hirundines trio) and swifts too. Swifts are more related to humming-birds and owls, but the hirundines and the swift portion-out the air space, house martin trawls the air at 2km up – they have feathered legs possibly to insulate against the cold temperature, swifts tuck their legs away and fly much higher (radar tells us this): both sleep on the wing, and barn swallows are low-lying hedge-hoppers.

The decline of house martins is discussed in relation to changes in agriculture. Piersma shows that the decline in Britain has mostly occurred across the country from north-west to south-east which, he says is an ‘easy fit’ with agricultural intensification. In his own country the numbers of Barnacle geese has ‘strongly increased’ over 1970-90s whilst the numbers of house martins has ‘strongly decreased’ over the same time. He reflects how meadows have decreased by 95%, and how the flowers are no longer there for the birds to feed on the associated insects.  The decline is not through a lack of nest sites as one stone bridge near Oxford used to have 400-500 nests in the 1950s but none now: the bridge is still there (Clifton Hampton bridge) so here is a little 2022 project for Oxford members of the HMCUK&I to check out the Oxfords bridges!

As to where the birds go for winter a little bit more of the jigsaw is coming into place. Analysing the hydrogen isotopes in the feathers indicated that the Gaast house martins actually go to Africa, south of the Sahara and into the Congo, trawling the rainforest canopy possibly benefiting from flying termites.

We learn that returning house martins tend to go to old nests on northern aspects, that a single nest takes at least 1000 journeys to construct and that nesting building needs to be near muddy locations. Some martins are clay thieves and sometimes nick others pieces of nest. Piersma has never seen House Martin mate, they possibly do this in the nest. And maybe that they sleep communally in nests too. Eleven is the total recorded to exit one nest. There is still so much to find out, questions to be asked.

For my own interest in house martins, I always think the house martins that choose to breed around the Mediterranean have a better time that those who go to Scotland or even Iceland, since there are plenty of insects around the Camargue delta, and one could still fit in a third generation.  I am familiar with hundreds of house martins regularly falling out of the sky and landing on houses, even trees ahead of summers storms in the Cévennes mountains. Piersma says that they rest on trees sometimes, yet my observations are that this is a regular occurrence when all wires and houses are occupied by birds which are natural self-spacers.

As far as I know there are no comparable books on house martins. There are no photos in this book (it does not need them), but there is an exhaustive list of references.  All house-martin-centric persons should read this book, indeed all those who like the swifts and swallows and birds in general. It is hard to swallow that we tend to know a wee bit more about house-martins around the nest, but still very little about where they go abroad.  The mysteries continue.   John Feltwell

The book is available from BTO books

House martins resting on a Nettle tree, Celtis australis.  Cévennes

 

Social-distancing on wires and gripping masonry  Cévennes

Resting up after a storm   Cévennes  all photos (c) John Feltwell

 

 

Conservation

Nat Hist of Butterflies 2021

Warren, M. 2021. Butterflies – Natural History. London, Bloomsbury. 385pp.  ISBN 978-1-4729-7525-6     9 781472 975256. No. 10 in The British Wildlife Collection. Review

If ever there was an appropriate person to write up this narrative on butterflies it is Dr Martin Warren, formerly Chief Executive of Butterfly Conservation. Originally he worked for The Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) – yes ages ago before it became English Nature and then Natural England – so he has experience that spans government bodies and NGOs and knows a thing or two about management for butterflies.

Warren’s doctorate was on the dainty Wood White butterfly and he has subsequently published on fritillaries (most of the 16 Warren references quoted are either on Wood Whites or fritillaries). He has also published key works on the Heath Fritillary and High Brown Fritillary and I am glad to say the book is not too fritillary-centric, or indeed Wood White-centric, although the book presents a good description of the Cryptic Wood White first observed in 2011 in the Burren, Eire. It is amongst five almost indistinguishable wood white species in Europe which fly together – with more DNA analysis to be carried out on UK specimens to determine their precise identification. Michael Warren is currently Head of Development with Butterfly Conservation Europe, so there is a little dash of continental influence in the text in particular on the effects of climate change and general distribution of populations which is not a bad thing as it informs the wider scene.

The way the book is written is a rolling narrative of butterflies in general, and in particular when necessary, and interspersed with personal observations in the wild. Latin names of plants and animals are banished to the back.  Typically of this book series the text is reminiscent of the Collins New Naturalist Library (NNL), where at the end of each chapter there is a ‘Concluding remarks’ section, which is always useful. NNL include Latin names in the text. Dame Miriam Rothschild gets a mention so too as well as the Chequered Skipper pub. The contributions of other important ‘lep’ authorities are discussed, Jeremy Thomas on the Large Blue and Matthew Oates on the Purple Emperor.

There are eighteen chapters none of which are on individual species, so if you want to know more about Swallowtails, Large blues or Small Tortoiseshells for instance, for which there is a good body of work, then it is a visit to the index to find where they appear, variously, in the text. Seven of the chapters are about the life and metamorphosis of butterflies amounting to about half the book. There are separate chapters on parasitoids, and ‘winners and losers’ and ‘Recording Butterflies’ an enthusiasm enjoyed by many; all very interesting and highlighting changes in butterfly numbers.

But what does Warren say about numbers and reasons of decline? Numbers: Yes, ‘several species have become extinct, and many have declined’….’around a quarter of species have expanded in recent decades due to our warming climate’, and ‘overall three-quarters of species have declined by one or other measure’ – all very confusing evidence over the last 200 years.  Essex Skipper, Brown Argus, Silver-spotted Skipper and Adonis Blue have spread considerably.

The reasons why butterflies are declining are a little more difficult to clarify. The ‘one or other measure’ are nitrogen deposition and pesticides, though Warren says the jury ‘may be out’ on whether neonicotinoid pesticides have impacted on butterfly populations. The biggest culprit for declines appears to be habitat loss and climate change, though Warren is not categorical on this  (whoever can be?) – ‘the evidence suggests’ British butterflies are being pulled in different directions, an environmental tug of war where ‘habitat loss and deterioration far outweighing any benefits from climate change. Warren cites his own work of 2001 to support this tug of war; it is a pity that others have not come down firmly on identifying the reasons for declines. There is so much evidential information on trends and declines, but not enough quantitative evidence on reasons. Warren is just the messenger.

In comparison with other books on butterflies, there has been nothing published recently; one has to go back to E. B. Ford’s ‘Butterflies’ in the NNL series (1945) which was more illustrated in colour and black and white, and certainly more scientific especially on evolution, theoretical genetics and races of butterflies, but equally a good read but on a different level. I have to blow my own trumpet with my ‘The Conservation of Butterflies in Britain’ (1995) which was not illustrated in colour but had some single species chapters.  So overall this new exciting book on butterflies is key to understanding a little more about the vagaries of butterfly populations in a warming world.

With the world changing due to the climate this is mirrored with changes in butterfly distribution. In Warren’s ‘long-distance travellers’ chapter we hear about the longest migrant insects in the world, the Monarch and the Painted Lady. With increase in climate change Red Admiral is now a resident when before it used to be an occasional migrant to these shores. The Monarch aggregations in Mexico are illustrated, though we in Britain are never overwhelmed by stray monarchs, Warren is hopeful that the Map butterfly may colonise this country, following in the footsteps of the Southern Small White and Geranium Bronze both of which have been successful colonisers. The relative dynamics of butterflies is well addressed in the book.

Recording butterflies is a very practical occupation for volunteers and there are chapters on ‘Recording butterflies’ and ‘Watching butterflies’ all of which will be enjoyed by readers. The photographs in the book are exemplary and some chosen for their detail; it is unusual to find such fine images in a natural history book.

The five appendices i) checklist of butterflies, ii) generations and food plants, iii) habitats and management requirements, iv) parasitoids (hymenopterans – nearly 60 species) and dipterans (18 spp) v) where to see butterflies in Britain and Ireland, are all very useful for keen butterfly-lovers  e.g. Knepp for Purple Emperors where else – but are they are expanding east?

The book is a useful and refreshing account of butterflies that will appeal to everyone; it is colourful and collectable – as a favourite natural history book to display on the table. Butterflies certainly do reflect the state of nature.

 

 

 

Book reviews, Conservation

Ecology & Nat Hist 2021

Wilkinson, D.M., 2021. Ecology and Natural History. The New Naturalist Library. No. 143 in the series. 368pp. ISBN 978-0-00-829363-5  9 780008 293635.   Review.

142 titles of this esteemed series of New Naturalists Library (NNL) have never used the word ecology in the title, but it has been fundamental to the discussion of many. The book reminds me of a classic work, Ecology of the English Chalk (C. J. Smith, 1980. Academic Press, 573pp) which is much longer, and which Wilkinson does not mention; there is just one reference to chalk in the index which is surprising.  Prof. Wilkinson approaches his new book from a wide angle of interests in the living world, since he is a Reader in environmental sciences at Liverpool John Moores University, and visiting professor in ecology at University of Lincoln and honorary research fellow in archaeology at the University of Nottingham.  His published works range from bacteria to dinosaurs.  So how does he put together a book on ecology and natural history of the British Isles?  Possibly very selectively.  Indeed, this is the case, the author says that it written very much in the same manner as Prof Sam Berry in his Inheritance and Natural History (No. 61) i.e. as his final year lectures without the mathematics. Wilkinson’s book provides ‘something more accessible, while maintaining scientific rigour.’ First he describes what is ecology, so he starts the bar low. Some of his eleven chapters are on particular places such as Windermere, Peak District, Cairngorms, Wicken Fen, Snowdonia’s Cwm Idwal, Rothamsted and Wytham Woods (two chapters no less), and who would blame him, for some of these are classic sites where lots of students have worked and data for degrees have been gathered and much research material is available. There is also a chapter on Gilbert White’s swifts at Selborne,  Grime’s work on snails, but nothing on Berry’s work on small mammals or Kettlewell’s work on changing moth colours, and nothing on the flora of nunataks. Climate change figures throughout the chapters and discussions, and there are colour photographs of Bass Rock showing variable size of the gannetry.  There is a reproduction of one of Bewick’s prints in the period of the Little Ice Age of someone trudging through the snow. Change is an external factor that even Darwin acknowledged altered the ecology; then and now it still is the climate governing ecological impact. The author engages us with the way that algae and bacteria (one of the author’s favourite subjects) are part of the ecology of habitats, to this has to be considered in context of the botany of arctic-alpine habitats in Wales and Scotland, to the research plots of Wicken, where the ecology is influenced by man, to diminishing meadows. When Wilkinson is talking about invasive plant species I am reminded of Richard Mabey’s Weeds (1996, Profile Books. 324pp) which is a good in-depth read of the subject. As is customary with this NNL series of books, this volume has lots of colour photographs (generally good), references, and a general and species index. This is not a gloom and doom book (just the last chapter on man’s impact), it’s ecology to the core and a good read. It is pity that the word ‘ecology’ took so long to get its name on the front cover the New Naturalists series. At least ‘conservation’ had a head start on ‘ecology’.

Book reviews, Conservation, Insects

Butterflies of Serra Dos Orgaos, 2020

Bizarro, J. and Martin, A., 2020. A Guide to the Butterflies of the Serra Dos Orgaos, South-eastern Brazil. REGUA publications. ISBN: 978-0-9568291-2-2  389pp  Review

As guide books go, this is not one for the pocket, but this is a magnificent tome (20x24cm) which depicts in perfect colour all the known butterflies of this part of SE Brazil. It is in English, but if it were in Portugese as well it would be twice as long.

The book includes a total of 923 species of butterfly recorded to date from the Serra Dos Orgaos in the State of Rio de Janeiro.  This includes the very difficult skippers (120 species) which have only been given general descriptions. That leaves 803 butterfly species are described completely with Scientific and Common names, descriptions, similar species, distribution and ecology. There are 58 species which are listed as Threatened in Brazil, and 14 of these which are found in the area, are included too. There is so much natural habitat in the REGUA lowlands to the ridge line of the Organ Mountains (2,260 m) to be explored that many more butterfly species will be discovered. Butterfly lovers wanting to discover new butterfly species need to head for the REGUA reserve.  Also included in the book are 5 butterfly species that are waiting to be described and named, one Symmachia sp. three satyrs and one Gorgythion skipper.

The authors include Dr Jorge Bizarro with a background in medical entomology and a passion for butterflies, and Alan Martin FLS, a renowned ornithologist and professional accountant who has fully embraced an enthusiasm for lepidoptera with a background in helping some of the leading UK and global conservation NGOs.  Other publications from REGUA include ‘A Guide to Hawkmoths of the Serra dos Orgaos’ in 2011 and ‘A Guide to Dragonflies and Damselflies of the Serra dos Orgaos’ in    and ‘A guide to Birds of the Serra dos Orgaos’ in 2015. So this is REGUA’s fourth publication, a credit to their professional output.

Extensive field work carried out by the authors and their many colleagues at the field station in REGUA has enabled this comprehensive compilation of butterflies of the area. It is in an area that Charles Darwin visited, and it still offers naturalists alike the opportunity to explore, discover and describe wildlife. The illustrations in the book, some 88 plates are key to identifying the species, all reproduced in superb colour, 15 species a page, almost all mostly shot in the wild. The range and diversity is stunning, but then the quality of the hinterland of REGUA is of perfect Atlantic Rainforest, a rare and declining habitat recognised as being in the top five global biodiversity hotspots in the world; there is only 16% of Atlantic rainforest left (it used to stretch south from the mouth of the Amazon), and REGUA with its 18,000 acres seeks to conserve (and enhance with native plantings – over 624,000 trees planted to date) what is left.  Bringing back the native flora is key to supporting and expanding the potential of butterflies and moths.  The new acres of wetlands increases the biodiversity of insects across many orders of insects including lepidoptera.

The guide will be immensely useful to visitors to these neotropical tropical habitats in Rio de Janeiro state and all those who wish to start identifying from their digital images.  As stated, the book is too large to have in a knapsack (it is over 1.1kg) but a copy needs to be in all field schools, field labs, libraries and university ecology and conservation departments, as a key reference book.

There is a Glossary, Latin Name Index, additional reading and references, and the list of Threatened species. This is a remarkable compilation and sets an important milestone in butterfly research in this wonderful part of the world.

VISIT    Reserva Ecológica de Guapiaçu  (REGUA) https://regua.org/about-us/
 REGUA PUBLICATIONS:
 A Guide to the Butterflies of the Serra dos Orgaos, South-eastern Brazil. Jorge Bizarro and Alan Martin ISBN: 978-0-9568291-2-2  £35.00 including UK delivery
Field Guide to the Birds of the Serra dos Órgãos and Surrounding Area. Daniel Mello, Gabriel Mello and Francisco Mallet-Rodrigues. ISBN: 978-85-919157-0-5.   £21.00 including UK delivery
A Guide to the Dragonflies and Damselflies of the Serra dos Orgaos, South-eastern Brazil Tom Kompier  ISBN: 978-0-9568291-1-5  £30.50 including UK delivery
 A Guide to the Hawkmoths of the Serra dos Orgaos, South-eastern Brazil.  Alan Martin, Alexandre Soares and Jorge Bizarro  ISBN-13: 9780956829108  £15.00 including UK delivery.
 All available from Alan Martin, Alureds Oast, Northiam, East Sussex, TN31 6JJ.

 

Book reviews, Conservation, Mitigation

Environment Act 2021

The Environment Act 2021 –  10% net gains now mandatory

(This is a preliminary review, awaiting commencement date – either from a Commencement Order, or , if not, the evening of 9 Nov 2021)

 The Environment Act 2021 was given Royal Assent on Tuesday 9 November 2021.[1]

NOT to be confused with The Environment Act 1995, especially where sections 4,5,6 on controlling pollution and ‘conserve and enhance’ are concerned.

The Environment Bill had this official long title:

‘A Bill to make provision about targets, plans and policies for improving the natural environment; for statements and reports about environmental protection; for the Office for Environmental Protection; about waste and resource efficiency; about air quality; for the recall of products that fail to meet environmental standards; about water; about nature and biodiversity; for conservation covenants; about the regulation of chemicals; and for connected purposes.’[2]

A new body will be set up called the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP).

Much of the Act is about sewage, but this briefing note is about the natural environment.

The OEP, according to George Eustice (Environment Secretary), will have five roles, which will be legally binding; these will strengthen the government’s commitment to ‘building back greener’ :

  1. The integration principle
  2. The prevention principle
  3. The rectification at source principle
  4. The polluter pays principle
  5. The precautionary principle

Further explanations of these are on gov.uk 2021[3]

If you think the last two principles are familiar, that is because they are in the 1992 Rio Declaration, of which the UK was a signatory.

Net Gain – key points[4]

  • Developments ‘Must satisfy 10% net gain in biodiversity points’,
  • Must be satisfied before planning permission is given
  • It is the duty of the LPAs to ensure compliance (expect variable uptake then!)
  • ‘The habitats created must be managed for up to 25-30 years’

Exceptions (only two)  are

  1. ‘Householder developments’.
  2. ‘Specific development on infrastructure land by providers or nationally significant infrastructure.’

Leniency is proposed for smaller sites to prevent disproportionate costs..

Net Gain delivery  – more key facts

The government requires all 35,000 developers to deliver these gains.

It estimates they they will have to pay out £900 per ha for site surveys, and £19,698 per ha for habitat creation (advised by RSPB, NT, Wildlife Trusts), inclusive of 30 years maintenance as well.

The government think net gain will help to achieve the 25-year environment plan (Defra, 2018).  They also think it will create a ‘level playing field’ for developers.

The gains have been estimated to achieve a monetary value of £1,395.7m. ‘These benefits do not fall within the 10 year appraisal period, as it is expected that developers take 20 years to create the desired habitat condition.’   So delayed monitoring will have be built into each development Site.

 It is believed that ‘29% of residential developments already deliver net gain is based on evidence that six developers have some form of habitat mitigation and creation policy.’

 The government believe that most net gains will continue to occur on site, though, off-site gains, as offsetting’ is likely to increase. This seems reasonable.

Whilst this consultant already knows some Councils who seek substantial payments of money per ha for biodiversity projects off-site the government have worked out that The assumption of the cost per biodiversity unit at £11,000 is satisfactorily supported’

                                                   

Other major changes

  • The Environment Bill ‘builds on this strong foundation, and maximises the opportunities created by leaving the European Union, underpinning our goal of delivering a Green Brexit.’[5]

If you want to know what a Green Brexit is, go to Soil Association video.[6]

  • Statutory Environmental Improvement Plans (the first being the 25 Year Environment Plan) will be created to ensure government can be held to account.
  • Local Nature Recovery Strategies will be established across England, to ‘support better spatial planning for nature recovery…’
  • Forestry Enforcement Measures will be introduced to give Forestry Commission powers to impose larger fines for illegal tree felling. (currently fines, when imposed are paltry).

            

[1] Hansard, 9 Nov.2021

[2] Gov.uk 8 Nov 2021. Environment Bill. Commons insistence, disagreement, amendments in lieu and reasons.  https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/43515/documents/910 (accessed 12 Nov 2021)

[3] Gov.uk. 2021. Press Release. From Defra and The Rt Hon George Eustice MP, dated 10 March 2021.  Consultation launches on on environmental principles.  Five legally binding principles will guide future policymaking to protect the environment. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/consultation-launched-on-environmental-principles (accessed 12 Nov 2021).

[4] Regulatory Policy Committee, 2021. Biodiversity net gain Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs RPC rating: fit for purpose.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/858037/2019.06.06_-_RPC-4277_2_-DEFRA-EA_biodiversity_net_gain.pdf  6pp. Date of issue 06.06.2019, but current and on site when accessed  www.gov.uk/rpc  (accessed 12 Nov 2021)

[5] Defra, 2021. Policy paper 30 January 2020, Updated 6 September 2021: Environment Bill 2020 policy statement Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-environment-food-rural-affairs). (accessed 12 Nov 2021)

[6] Soil Association 2021  Green Brehttps://www.soilassociation.org/causes-campaigns/green-brexit/ (accessed 12 Nov 2021)