On November 21st Forum members and guests were treated to a whistle-stop tour around Devon, during which we were introduced to some of the less well known and less appealing characters in the county's wildlife scene, courtesy of Buckfastleigh based naturalist, photographer, wildlife artist and author John Walters.
We were shown a series of shots of a cuckoo being reared from the usurper egg in the nest by its surrogate meadow pipit parents, showing how the rapacious cuckoo chick steadily tips all the meadow pipit eggs out of the nest.
We saw shots of adders conducting their hypnotic waving dance as two males seek to dominate the other and win over a nearby female. Among other things John also introduced us to the horrid ground weaver, a tiny and very rare money spider that John discovered near Plymouth, and two thoroughly disgusting slugs, the elephant slug which can be as much as 300mm long, and the leopard slug, found near Exeter, which can be nearly as long.
As an antidote to these unappealing creatures, John rounded his talk off with a charming video clip he himself filmed of a family of long-tailed tits clustering together on a branch as they settle down to roost for the night.
We were shown a series of shots of a cuckoo being reared from the usurper egg in the nest by its surrogate meadow pipit parents, showing how the rapacious cuckoo chick steadily tips all the meadow pipit eggs out of the nest.
We saw shots of adders conducting their hypnotic waving dance as two males seek to dominate the other and win over a nearby female. Among other things John also introduced us to the horrid ground weaver, a tiny and very rare money spider that John discovered near Plymouth, and two thoroughly disgusting slugs, the elephant slug which can be as much as 300mm long, and the leopard slug, found near Exeter, which can be nearly as long.
As an antidote to these unappealing creatures, John rounded his talk off with a charming video clip he himself filmed of a family of long-tailed tits clustering together on a branch as they settle down to roost for the night.
RSS Feed
