From striking jackdaws and colourful ladybirds to bracken, earthstars, and chrysalis, there’s much to look for this month, says our wildlife expert Keith Kirk
JACKDAWS
I have a soft spot for Jackdaws, often seen as the enemy by some folks.
These small members of the crow family are highly intelligent and social, and can easily pick up tricks and new skills in the wild, as well as in captivity.
Once, a tame Jackdaw was trained by some Italian thieves to steal money from cash machines! These days it’s more common to see them working out how to gain access to bird feeders and I often see them lifting the lids on peanut feeders to gain access to the nuts.
Jackdaws can even identify individual humans, although we’re not entirely sure how they do it. Only a few animals are capable of this, with the others including other corvids such as magpies, as well as chimpanzees and pigeons.
Like most of their corvid cousins, Jackdaws are just as much at home in farmland and woodland, as they are in our urban landscapes. The latter is thanks to their adaptability and intelligence.
Check out their lovely pale blue eyes.
CHRYSALIS
Before all you gardeners go crazy this autumn and winter and start digging and tidying up the garden, do keep an eye out for chrysalis, like this, in the soil.
Often, they won’t be far from the surface and so can easily be crushed whilst you are using a spade or fork as you turn the soil.
This almost insignificant looking object will in fact produce the most amazing looking moth in the spring: the Elephant Hawkmoth. Pink, green and white and almost solely flying at night.
It’s such a shame that few people will ever get to see such a spectacular moth.
BRACKEN
If someone was to ask you what the most common plant in the world is, what would you say? Some botanists believe that, among the vascular plants, this title should be awarded to none other than our native Pteridium aquilinum, more commonly known as bracken, because it is found on every continent; bar Antarctica, and can survive at sea level and as high as 3,000m above.
Fossil records indicate that bracken, and other fern species, date as far back as 55 million years ago - 200 million years before the first flowering plants emerged.
Bracken have no flowers, so no seeds, which baffled early scientists as they pondered how these plants were capable of propagating. The apparent invisible nature of bracken seeds gave birth to the folklore story that whoever held the tiny spores of bracken in their hands would become as invisible as the seeds.
We now know that they produce spores which are carried by the wind. Though I have never seen bracken spore in Dumfries & Galloway - have you?
Elsewhere in the country, bracken spores are not very successful in the plant’s reproduction. It has a more powerful means of achieving its landscape-scale domination. Beneath the soil, horizontal stems called rhizomes are at work. They can spread over 120cm in one year, allowing new shoots and root systems to develop some distance from the original plant.
LADYBIRDS
It is a tricky time for ladybirds in winter. Not only are the cold temperatures far from ideal, but food is scarce. So, they take the fading light and falling temperatures as a trigger to find a sheltered place to become dormant.
Some species opt for burying themselves under leaf litter and others disappear into bark crevices. Some species will favour buildings as their preferred winter hideout. Ladybirds will often huddle together over winter sometimes in very high numbers and sometimes just in small groups. As soon as the day length increases in late winter and early spring the ladybirds begin to stir but they often return to the group at the end of the day until the temperatures increase significantly.
Once spring is underway then the ladybirds leave their winter groups to find food and a mate so their life cycle can begin again.
EARTHSTARS
Little is known about the underground world of Earthstars mycelia, which is the main body of any fungus. Most Earthstars grow in association with trees or rotting stumps. Some are faithful to the same site year after year, but most are fickle, seldom appearing in the same spot two years running.
Several species, including many formerly thought of as rare, are now turning up in mature herbaceous borders that have been liberally mulched with wood chips. The Collared Earthstar is our most widespread species, with a diameter between seven and ten centimetres. There are usually between five and seven rays, which crack as they arch and result in the spore sac, which some say looks like a cup and saucer?
They can be found in woods and gardens. At first, this Earthstar looks like small brown bulb partially or completely buried in the ground. The un-stalked spore sac is onion-like with a basal collar, with the rays open flat. I have only ever seen them a couple of times between August and November in a Kirkcudbright garden.
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