Well done! It’s the little kingfisher that is the most productive, nurturing up to three broods a year, each of six or seven eggs. Whooper swans and greylag geese have only one brood, while herons normally have one or two broods. From top left, whooper swan, greylag goose, heron, kingfisher.
Bad luck! It’s the little kingfisher that is the most productive, nurturing up to three broods a year, each of six or seven eggs. Whooper swans and greylag geese have only one brood, while herons normally have one or two broods. From top left, whooper swan, greylag goose, heron, kingfisher.
Pine martens are members of the mustelid family, which includes weasels and otters.
They are about the size of a domestic cat and have a giveaway yellow bib on their chests.
Pine martens eat birds, insects, fruit and small mammals including squirrels. Studies suggest they are more likely to take the non-native grey squirrels, which are heavier than reds and cannot escape as easily into the thinner branches of trees. Red are also more wary of pine martens, having evolved alongside them, unlike the greys.
Like many species the pine marten was driven to the verge of extinction by hunting but is now undergoing a resurgence, spreading south through the Scottish Borders and down into England.
Stoats can kill a much larger rabbit with a bite to the back of the neck.
They mate in the summer but females hold on to the fertilised eggs until the next spring.
Their young are know as kits and they can have a single litter of up to 12 kits in a year.
Stoats are larger than weasels and have a lolloping gait. They have a distinctive black tip on the end of their tails.
Stoats are active day and night.
Hedgehogs generally live alone and the young – up to 11 in a litter – go their own way after as little as four weeks from birth.
They get their name from the grunting noises they make as they hunt for worms, insects, frogs, snails and slugs and small rodents.
Hedgehogs hibernate over the winter, emerging in spring.
They can run quickly – and swim – but their natural defence mechanism is to curl up into a ball and to rely on their spines to deter predators.
Weasels are smaller than stoats and have shorter tails. Unlike stoats, they don’t arch their bodies when running.
They can have two litters of up to six kits a year.
Weasels eat up to a third of their own weight every day, with mice and voles their snack of choice.
Hazels live naturally for about 80 years – but coppicing (cutting them down to a stump and allowing shoots to regrow – increases the life span to several centuries.
The tree was the first to establish itself after the last ice age and evidence has been found of hazelnut processing in Scotland during the mesolithic period around 9,000 years ago.
The leaves are soft and downy underneath and the plant bears both male and female flowers, with the bright yellow catkins appearing in February, before the leaves appear. The female flowers resemble buds and have red tips known as styles.
The nuts are an important source fo food for many creatures including squirrels, dormice, nuthatches and woodpeckers.
Hazel wands are traditionally used for water divining.