Welcome to Issue 10 of The Realm! And I would like to start by wishing everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR! To fit in with the wintery season we have a bumper issue filled with winter wildlife from polar bears to the gyrfalcon. Not to mention the lyrics from that all-time favourite Christmas song that introduced the most famous of Santa's reindeer to the world! It is important to remember your garden guests at this time of the year and so we have a few tips for catering for our feathered friends and check out our very own advent calendar to count down the days until Christmas! Not to mention our fun arcade to play some wintery games!
CONTENTS
Remember the Birds This Christmas
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Song
The Realm Advent Calendar 2008!
Nature News
A quick run-down of the top wildlife stories making the news over the last month:
For the first time in around 200 years Tuataras are nesting on the New Zealand mainland following predator-fencing of a reserve where the tuatara were released.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/10/31/tuatara-new-zealand.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7715693.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/3447222/Rare-rhino-snake-breeds-in-captivity.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/3471675/Glove-puppet-helps-pygmy-hippo-start-eating.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/11/05/eacrocodile105.xml
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081112-biggest-fish.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/11/04/eagreenpeace104.xml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3399680/Great-white-sharks-hang-out-at-%27cafes%27-to-find-a-mate.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/dna-discovery-shows-lookalike-dolphin-is-one-of-a-new-breed/2008/11/19/1226770542476.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/3509540/GPS-used-to-track-rescued-Tasmanian-whales.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7736786.stm
Remember the Birds This Christmas
Please remember our feathered friends at this time of year. As winter progresses the seeds and fruits that were plentiful in the autumn are disappearing and this is when food reserves start to become scarce. But it isn’t only food…as the temperature drops water starts to freeze and birds also need water to survive.
How to…Keep water ice-free
There are several ways of keeping water in your pond or bird bath free from ice - remember, if you keep fish it is essential to ensure your pond doesn’t freeze over completely as this can cause oxygen in the pond to become depleted forcing the fish to the surface where they can end up trapped in ice. Here are just a few tips:
· Try floating a ping-pong ball in the water, the movement of the ball prevents the bath from freezing over completely
· Pour hot water on the ice to melt it
· There are a variety of emersion heaters to keep water free from ice, though most of these require electricity to run.
· Ice-free for birdbaths is a product especially designed to keep bird baths ice-free. It uses a blend of natural plant extracts that lowers the temperature ice freezes at to -4°C (this doesn’t keep water from freezing at temperatures below this so I would recommend using this with the next tip…)
· Alternatively use a dish and bring it in at night so that doesn’t freeze putting it out again in the morning.
A robin at the bird bath
One winter a few years back, a little robin used to visit our garden. The birdbath would freeze overnight, but this robin learnt that my dad would come out when he gets up (he used to leave for work very early in the morning and so was always the first up), take out the ice and then refill the bath with fresh water. This robin used to sit and wait, looking through the kitchen window watching for my dad to get up. He would then fly to the bath, peck at the ice, fly back to the fence and repeat this until my dad came out to refill the bath! He would sit on the fence and watch as the bath was filled before flying straight down for his morning drink.
Birds at Christmas
It is vital that bird feeders are kept topped-up during winter especially as once birds start visiting your garden in the winter your feeders will be part of the birds’ route to different feeding sites. Stopping feeding during cold weather can be fatal for the birds as they need all the energy they can get to keep warm and may not make it to the next feeding site.
Fat cakes (recipe can be found in Issue 7) are an excellent way of giving the birds that extra energy they need. Every day in the winter, small birds need to eat as much as 40% of their body weight so the food you supply can be vital. Remember, they will also appreciate scraps including left-over Christmas cake and pudding!
Why is the Robin associated with Christmas?
They decorate Christmas cards; ornaments of them are hung on the tree. They are perhaps the one bird most associated with the festive season. But how did the robin become so associated with Christmas time? Though there are myths as to the robin getting his red breast from singing on the shoulder of Jesus on the cross to ease his pain, his chest becoming stained with blood as a result, and of a robin fanning the heat of a fire towards the newborn baby Jesus to keep him warm, the most likely explanation for the robin becoming associated with Christmas time is down to the Victorian postman. Postmen used to wear red uniforms and as a result they were nicknamed “Robin”, thus the robin is an emblem of the postman delivering the card.
A Robin is not just for Christmas…
BTO tips for helping your local robins:
- Put up a nestbox, Robins nest in open fronted type nestboxes. http://www.bto.org/notices/nnbw2006(2)
- Plant a berry-producing shrub; Robins will feed on berries during the winter months.
- Provide cover in your garden. A garden with shrubs and small bushes will provide a safe haven for breeding Robins.
- Feed your Robins, mealworms, peanut granules and pinhead oats are favourites.
- Provide a regular supply of clean water and wash your birdbath frequently.
Song Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Song
How can we have a Christmas special without that much-loved Christmas character, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer? We can't! So here are the lyrics to the song that brought Rudolph to Children around the world!
Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer
had a very shiny nose.
And if you ever saw him,
you would even say it glows.
All of the other reindeer
used to laugh and call him names.
They never let poor Rudolph
join in any reindeer games.
Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say:
"Rudolph with your nose so bright,
won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"
Then all the reindeer loved him
as they shouted out with glee,
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,
you'll go down in history!
Winter Survival
WINTER SURVIVAL
Surviving winter is a massive challenge for many animals, but what about those animals that live in the extreme cold of the Antarctic and Antarctic? These are the coldest places on earth and surviving here is a challenge. Only a few animals have adapted to live in these extremes of cold.
Polar Bears
Polar bears have a number of adaptations that enable them to survive during the winter. Their fur is arranged in two layers. The outer layer is made up off long, hollow guard hairs that protect the soft undercoat beneath. Beneath this insulating layer of fur is a layer of blubber that can be over 4 inches thick providing further insulation. In fact, all this insulation is so effective that on infra-red cameras that work by detecting the heat given off by animals the polar bears are virtually invisible!
These aren’t the bears only adaptations to reduce heat-loss. They also have small ears and a small tail both of which reduce the surface area from which heat can escape. All this means polar bears are very well protected from the cold, in fact these adaptations to keep them warm in the cold Arctic mean that in warmer climates they are vulnerable to overheating!
Keeping warm isn’t the only problems the bears face however. Food in the Arctic is spread over a vast area. As a result, these bears have an excellent sense of smell that enables them to find prey and carrion from long distances away, they can even smell seal pups beneath the ice!
Their paws are also specially adapted for walking on the ice. Covered in small bumps (known as papillae) their feet are excellent for gripping onto the slippery ice and their large size means that they act like snow-shoes preventing the bear from sinking into thick snow. They also act as excellent paddles for when the bear is swimming as the adaptations they have for keeping warm on the ice also keep them insulated when swimming in the chilly Arctic Ocean!
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/
Penguins
At the opposite end of the planet to the polar bear is the home of the penguins, the even colder Antarctic. As a result, penguins are also adapted to the cold sharing some similar methods with the polar bear, but some different features. The penguins feathers act in a similar way to the polar bears fur, and like the polar bear penguins also have a thick layer of blubber to protect them from the cold. The penguins also have dark feathers on their back to help absorb heat. However, two parts of the penguins body aren’t very well insulated and these are their flippers and their feet. Penguins need their flippers to propel them through the water and their feet are absent of any feathers. But is this necessarily a bad thing? When active penguins generate a lot of heat and therefore they are vulnerable to overheating, thus these two parts of the body are effective when it comes to helping the birds loose heat. The blood flow to these areas can be increased or decreased to suit whether the penguin needs to lose or retain heat. Of course, it isn’t a good thing if the muscles that power the feat and the flippers get cold and so the muscles for these are located in the warmth of the body rather than on the limbs. This means that the limbs can get cold but the muscles are kept warm and functioning normally.
Not all the adaptations the penguins have though are physically. While polar bears are loners, penguins are social and this behaviour is critical for surviving and breeding on the Antarctic ice. This is because the penguins huddle together to stay warm and this reduces the rate of loss of the layers of fat they built up over the summer meaning that they can last longer on the ice – long enough to hatch their precious eggs and produce the next generation.
Antarctic Cod
It isn’t only the warm-blooded animals that struggle in the cold, fish do too! While mammals and birds are warm-blooded, fish rely on the surrounding water to regulate their body temperatures. Fish don’t have insulating feathers or fur, or thick layers of blubber to keep them insulated from the cold water and so they need to use a different method to survive the coldest parts of the winter. Some fish have a natural anti-freeze in their blood, but the Antarctic Cod has developed a unique way of surviving the dark Antarctic winters. They seem to go into a state of torpor – similar to hibernation. This reduces the energy the fish uses up, though it is still unknown if there are also chemical changes within the fish.
Lemmings
Many animals at the poles rely on large size to help retain heat. The larger the animal the less surface area there is to lose heat through. Lemmings though don’t have the advantage of large size, and they don’t hibernate like other Arctic rodents, so how do they survive the snowy seasons?
They survive by using snow to their advantage. Snow is an excellent insulator because as it falls it traps pockets of air and just under the snows surface it is warmer than the temperature at the surface. Other adaptations including thick fur and small extremities (eats, limbs, tail etc) also help the lemmings stay warm. Beneath the snow, the lemmings dig tunnels and continue to forage as normal and by remaining active they become a vital food supply for the Arctic’s predators such as snowy owls and Arctic foxes.
A Winter Guest
A few years ago, I had an unusual winter guest staying in my room. It all started one frosty day. My dad was doing some work upstairs and he needed the metal step-ladder that was kept in the shed. He brought more than just the ladder into the house though. As I was walking up the stairs I saw what looked like an apple pip against the cream carpet. But it wasn’t an apple pip – it was a tiny seven-spot ladybird! He must have been hibernating on the ladder and fallen off as it was taken up the stairs. I thought he was dead at first, but a closer look showed that he was alive and moving. The question then became what to do with him.
A little home was made for him from a box and some shredded paper and fortunately I had bought some ladybird food earlier that year to attract ladybirds into the garden. That didn’t work, but it certainly provided good food for the little ladybird we had now named Tadladesh (Tad for short). There he stayed throughout the winter, apart from an escape or two! He did return to his hibernation (giving us quite a scare as we thought he was dead!) having gained quite a bit of weight on the ladybird food. Soon spring was arriving and it was time to let little Tad go. He was released back into the garden on one fine, warm spring morning never to be seen again…
Birds of Ice and Snow
QUEEN OF THE ARCTIC
The cold Arctic is home to the most impressive of all the falcons. She is the largest falcon in the world, and the most northerly. She is the gyrfalcon.
If any bird could be the Snow Queen of the natural world, it is the gyrfalcon. In their most northerly habitats, their plumage is almost completely white providing suitable camouflage against her frozen realm. Further south, the plumage becomes darker to better blend in with their habitat to birds that are almost black in colour. Like all falcons, they have excellent eyesight enabling them to spot her prey from miles away. And in the desolate Arctic wilderness this is vital for prey is often few and far between. As a result, gyrfalcons are far from being numerous. Their numbers are directly linked to the availability of their prey – which varies from mammals such as lemmings and hares to geese and even Corvids are picked off by these opportunistic birds of prey that can’t pass up the opportunity of any meal in this unforgiving landscape they live in.
Despite having a low population and naturally being rare, gyrfalcons are not considered threatened and because of the remote areas they live in man has had a low impact on their numbers. Prized as a falconry bird, the difficulties in finding and capturing them resulted in them being classed as a bird fit only for a king in medieval times. Even today, they are still prized in falconry but so few are taken from the wild that this has little impact on their numbers.
It is thought that gyrfalcons pair for life and they start to breed at around three years of age and from then they lay a clutch of between 1-5 eggs roughly every other year. The female lays her clutch on steep cliff ledges with an overhang to provide some shelter from the worst of the Arctic weather, though the will some times take over old nests of ravens and golden eagles. These two birds are the only real threat to the gyrfalcons and their nests, and only the raven has been recorded as being brave enough to raid a gyrfalcon nest. For the chicks, their biggest danger is their food supply running out. While the female broods the eggs and protects the young chicks, the main hunting duties fall to the male who sometimes will have to travel vast distances to find the food needed to support his hungry family.
For the chicks, growing fast is vital especially in the most northerly parts of their range. Here the summer is short and food soon starts to become increasingly scarce. Upon fledging, they have to develop their hunting and flying skills as quickly as possible in the brief time they get to spend under their parent’s watchful gaze before they have to set out in search of territories of their own. From then on, the chicks are on their own in their icy wilderness until the day comes when they find partners to raise their chicks.
PRINCESS OF THE SNOW
If the gyrfalcon is the bird queen of the Arctic, then the elegant Snow Petrel is the Princess of the Antarctic snow. These small, graceful petrels are one of only three birds that exclusively breed in the Antarctic and they have even been recorded at the most southerly point in the world – the South Pole. To blend in with their surroundings, their plumage is pure white though their eyes and beak are coal-black and their legs and feet a bluish grey. Nesting in these isolated regions though doesn’t equal safety. The South Polar Skuas are the major predator of the petrels’ eggs and chicks, following the petrels to their nesting sites in the hope of raiding the nest of its occupants. These plucky petrels though don’t just let these nest raiders have it easy – when predators are near the adults regurgitate a stinky mess of half-digested krill that they fire at the attacker to repel them. This is usually enough to put off all but the most determined of nest raiders.
The single chick grows quickly fed on a rich diet of krill and soon leaves the nest before the Antarctic winter draws in. After fledging, the youngster joins the parents foraging around the Antarctic ice floes, pack ice and Arctic rarely ever leaving this frozen region. Here they search for the krill upon which they depend, building up their reserves to survive the winter months and the future breeding season.
The Realm Advent Calendar 2008!
Click on the number of each day in the countdown towards Christmas to see what is hiding behind each one! (Sorry, no chocolates in this one!)
A Gecko-keepers 12 Days of Christmas
I wrote this last year for a contest, enjoy!'
A Geckos Twelve Days Of
Christmas
On the first day of Christmas my geckos gave to me,
A cricket floating in my coffee
On the second day of Christmas my geckos gave to me
Two big bags of playsand
On the third day of Christmas my geckos gave to me
Three calcium dishes
On the fourth day of Christmas my geckos gave to me
Four silk Exo-terra plants
On the fifth day of Christmas my geckos gave to me
Five juicy waxies
On the sixth day of Christmas my geckos gave to me
Six toilet roll tubes
On the seventh day of Christmas my geckos gave to me
Seven cockroaches scurrying
On the eighth day of Christmas my geckos gave to me
Eight flashing spot lights
On the ninth day of Christmas my geckos gave to me
Nine chunks of cork bark
On the tenth day of Christmas my geckos gave to me
Ten locusts leaping
On the eleventh day of Christmas my geckos gave to me
Eleven live air plants
On the twelfth day of Christmas my geckos gave to me
Twelve baby geckos hatching
By Silvershark
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
MERRY CHRISTMAS to all our readers and all the best for 2009! I hope you all enjoy the festive period and I hope you will all return for the New Years edition of The Realm which will be filled with tips to starting off 2009 with a greener lifestyle! So if you have any top environmentally friendly tips you'd like to share for the next edition get scribbling and send your articles to therealmofnature@hotmail.com and your article could be in the next issue!