That doesn’t sound like a bat… The majority of our paid work in the UK, especially as of late, is to carry out bat surveys. This involves turning up to a site just before dusk or dawn and listening out for bat echolocations using a special piece of equipment, a bat detector. Bats found in…
Month: August 2017
On the Road: Stag Beetles (Lucanus cervus)
Setting the Scene Now 250km in to my 1000km charity bike ride; tired, sore and almost at the brow of the last hill of the day, I cycled past a male stag beetle wandering out from the grass verge and heading straight for certain death in the two-way traffic. ‘But I’m so close to the…
Common Wall Lizards Basking in Basque Country
Across a gently flowing stream high in the forested mountains of the Basque Country, Spain, I spotted two basking common European wall lizards (Podarcis muralis). Without hesitation (like any good ecologist) I waded across the water to inspect. These two lizards (photographed at some distance with a 600mm telephoto lens) looked a lot like the…
Sphingids of Spain: The Broad-bordered Bee Hawk-moth
In this post, we want to share with you another beautiful Sphingid, the broad-bordered bee hawk-moth (Hemaris fuciformis). It is nationally scarce in the UK and restricted to small areas, so we were pretty excited to see it in Spain.
Sphingids of Spain: Is That a Hummingbird? No, It’s a Hawk-moth!
You might have noticed that we haven’t been blogging very much recently. The reason for this is because we’ve been on the road travelling through France and Spain. Tom cycled 1000 kilometres from Bristol, UK, to Toulouse, France, over eight days to raise money for Pancreatic Cancer UK in memory of his dad. Tom’s mum…
The Atlantic Puffin: Fun Facts Edition!
Did you know that ‘Puffinus puffinus’ is not the Latin name for any of the three puffin species?
How many Sandeels do you reckon a puffin can hold in its beak at once?
What is the oldest recorded lifespan of an Atlantic puffin on Skomer Island?
Read our blog post to find out. 🙂
ZOOMOLOGY BLOG 