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Leopards

Leopards are probably the most popular of the big cats and the fashion industry has never tired of copying their gorgeous patterning for stylish clothes.  Leopards usually live in Africa and Asia, and the most common and well known type are tan with black circular markings, but there are some leopards that are born with completely black fur.  They are rarer but are still part of the leopard family.

Leopards are smaller than tigers and eat other small animals that are easy to catch such as domestic dogs, pigs and monkeys.  They do not stay on the ground very long after they have caught their prey and with their extra strong muscles they haul their kill up a carefully chosen tree and eat their meal in relative safety. 

They sleep most of the daytime in secure trees and awaken as night falls and begin their search for a new snack  usually on their own. 

Leopards are wonderful animals to watch in the wild and surprisingly can survive and prosper in almost any terrain.

 

The clever Jays

The Jay is a clever bird because during the spring and summer they collect acorns and bury them in the ground in a secret place   Then throughout the winter when food in scarce the jay returns to his secret spot and digs up the acorns and eats them.  So he has a supply of food until the spring comes around again.

Jays are good for the forests that they like to live in because if they forget to dig up one of the acorns they often sprout into young trees and will be  another feeding ground for the future.

The Jay is a brown bird with a distinctive black and white patch on its upper wing and a bright blue stripe on its lower wing.  It is unmistakeable and they are very easy to spot.

Jays are beautiful birds, a bit noisy but fun to watch and it is a delight when you find one.

 

The gregarious rabbit

Rabbits are adorable and like to live in big colonies, they are very sociable and like mixing with the group.  There are hierarchies and some rabbits have more status than others.  The higher their status the more space they have to live in the warren .

Rabbits are not natural to England and were only introduced in 12 Century from the Continent.  Many people keep rabbits as pets and they make good pets for children.  But the wild rabbits breed at such a rate that sometimes they have become pests in the countryside.

They eat grass, the bark from trees and plants.  They rarely need to drink water because their diet provides enough water for them to survive for a long time.

 

The beautiful and distinctive eagle owl

The eagle owl is quite a stocky bird with white fluffy legs and feet. They have feathers above each eye which look like fluffy eyebrows.  It makes the eagle owl look very intelligent and attractive, also they are very easy to identify.

Eagle owls are big birds with a wingspan of over 2m, they hunt from first light through to the end of dawn and have fantastic eye sight which they use to locate their prey. They are not always territorial and often let other birds with different hunting and feeding patterns to share their domains. 

They live for about 20 years and  have a fairly safe  free life.

 

 

The Polar bear

Did you know that white polar bears originally descended from brown bears and a long while ago they broke away and a new white polar bear strain was formed and then established itself in the Arctic area.

Polar bears are one of the largest animals that live on land, they are very good swimmers and have waterproof coats and webbed feet to enhance their swimming abilities.  They find food in the surrounding seas but their favourite diet is seal and they will stalk and hunt them. 

Their young are born in a self made hole under the ice and remain there until the weather gets warmer and they have a chance of survival, they are small and quite vulnerable for some months.

Polar bears are very popular because their white furry coats are so pretty, but their colouring is really so they can blend in to the arctic snow and ice, which is helpful when they go hunting.

 

Frogs

Frogs like damp places and are never far from water.  It is quite easy to attract them into your garden by inserting a pond and many frogs prefer garden ponds as natural pools become unavailable.

They eat insects, slugs and snails so it can be good to have them in your garden.  They mate in February to March and produce frog spawn.  They hatch some time after two weeks but stay in the water until they are three months old. 

They young frogs and the mature frogs are very vulnerable to predators.  Large birds, cats and even hedgehogs will catch and eat them if they can.

These are lovely creature and one you should encourage into your garden.  Once you have a pair they will stay for a long time as they mate in the same pool every year.

 

The house mouse

The House Mouse originates from Asia but has spread across the whole world because they can easily hide in food and stores without being detected.  They breed from a young age and have  four or five litters a year, so they produce large new colonies in new places very fast.

They are attracted to food  in all shapes and sizes, they will eat half a bar of soap and gnaw through electrical wires. 

They are alert and quite cute to look at but have a bad smell.  The suffer badly in the cold weather and many of them die.  This is why they look for buildings to shelter in during the cold winters, so that they can stay warm.  The rest of the year they are happy in the fields, hedges  and woods. 

If they survive the winter then they can live for about 18 months.

 

Bee

Have you ever wondered what the Queen bee of a beehive actually does?  The colder weather in the Autumn comes across the country and many of the bees die in the cold weather.  But the Queen bees finds nooks and crannies in the countryside in which to bury themselves and hibernate for the winter months tucked up warm and secure.

When the first signs of Spring appear and the days get lighter and warmer the Queen bee emerges from her sanctuary and gets busy.

She investigates old nests across the woods and decides on a suitable location for the new hive.  Then the Queen gathers as much nectar from all the newly opened flowers and  takes it back to her nest.  She has already mated last year and still has the eggs inside her.  Now is the time to lay those eggs in a wax hexagonal shell which she makes and lines with honey. 

The eggs hatch into female larva’s and turn into bees, which work hard to continue the rest of the construction of the hive,  gathering nectar and lining the hive with honey.

Much later, more eggs are laid by the Queen bee and these turn into male bees.  The males mate with the females of this hive and bees from other hives in the neighbourhood.

Again the colder weather comes and many of the bees die.  But the Queen bees have hibernated to start new hives in the Spring. 

 

Swifts

The Alpine swift comes from France and is the largest of all the Swifts  at about 23 cm.  It occasionally visits the UK and sighting have been seen in Cornwall.  Its main diet is small flies and insects  which it catches in the air. 

The Swifts preferred habitat is the French mountains but it has been known to mate in high manmade structures.  They have reasonably high population numbers and are breeding well.  Swifts lay one or two eggs in the summer and Autumn which are cared for by the male and females and feel safe and secure on high land because they live in large groups with maybe over 20 birds.

Swifts  have a  dark brown back and wing feathers with a bright white breast feathers and a black tail.  They look so pretty flying in the sky and are unmistakeable .    They have quite long angular wings, and are superb flyers.  

 

Black Howler Monkey

The most surprising thing about the Black Howler Monkey is that the females are golden brown.   The males are black but the babies and their mothers are brown.  It is thought this is to give the vulnerable females with babies some extra protection because they can blend into the trees and their surrounding whilst caring for their young.  The baby Black Howlers stay with their mother for about a year and then leave the group where they were born and finds other groups to join

 They live in the rainforests of Brazil and surrounding countries.  Most famous for being the loudest animal in the world because of their calls that can be heard for 3 or 4 miles across the rain forest.   This is of course is necessary so that they can communicate and stay in touch with all the different groups of howler monkeys .   

However, it does make them easy to locate and are therefore hunted by local people.  They are big monkeys about 2 foot high, live for about 16 years  and look quite daunting.  But in actual fact they are not very active and doze 70% of the day.  They spend a good amount of the time eating mainly leaves from the very tops of trees in the forest, they also eat figs, fruit, flowers and plants.  They spend some time playing and socialising but most of the time they just rest.