Wild flowers photographed in Marston Meadows
Wildlife
Jack
Straw's Lane Association
website
home page
West Oxfordshire Animal Rescue
18 Sweetmans Road, Botley
Oxford OX2 9BA (view
map)
(07725) 944 397
Oxon & Bucks Mental Health
Trust have requested a judicial review of the
recommendation by the Inspector that Warneford Meadow
should be registered as a Town Green.
Having trouble identifying birds by their song?
For quick identification of the song of the most common 15 UK birds, try:
BBC website with photos of garden birds and
recordings of their song.
Another bird identification website:
Birds of Britain - web magazine for birdwatchers
iSpot is another website that could be useful for identifying wildlife
(The RSPB website is currently very slow to load)
£10m initiative to tackle bee and pollinator decline
Up to £10 million is to be invested to help to identify the main threats to bees and other insect pollinators under a major project announced on 21 April 2009. Click here.
Bee venom
successfully
used to fight cancer
The bee toxin, melittin, is carried to the cancer cells by microscopic 'nanobees' made of perfluorocarbon. The toxin destroys cancer cells by making holes in them but does not attack healthy cells.
Fancy a modern 'beehaus'
in your garden?
Urban householders are being urged to consider keeping bees in their gardens, rooftops or even balconies to help protect declining honeybee populations.
Click here.
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Bumblebee Conservation Trust - click here
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For information on Solitary Bees (bees that don't live in colonies - the vast majority of bees, in fact) click here.
UK Butterflies in decline
One of the UK's most common butterflies is suffering a drastic decline. See BBC report.
The Butterfly Conservation site has an excellent guide to the identification of butterflies (the 'Butterflies' tab has an 'Identify a butterfly' option).
UK Butterflies (in association with Butterfly Conservation) provides an equally good guide for identification.
Worms
One
of the characters in
Richard Scarry's children's books is Lowly Worm
(pictured left), who sports a Tyrolean hat, and a shoe
at the end of his body. Sometimes he flies an
apple-shaped helicopter (his distant relatives have far
surpassed this - see end of this section).
Worms, in fact, are anything but
'lowly' when it comes to their ecological and scientific importance.
There are 26 species of British earthworms. The largest is 30 cm long and the shortest about 6 cm. One group, which lives in leaf litter or compost heaps, is especially distinctive. These worms are essential for breaking down the material and turning it into compost.
Worms in compost bin
Some are obviously red in colour, although they can also be dark brown and the Tiger worm (Eisenia fetida) is striped. There is more information on worms on the Buglife website.
Worms
in Space!
On Monday, 16
November 2009, the US space shuttle Atlantis left for
the International Space Station with about
one million microscopic worms on board. The worms
are for experiments intended to help scientists
understand why human muscles waste away in zero gravity.
See
BBC news item
The species in orbit, Caenorhabditis elegans, has also been identified as a model for nicotine dependence, as it has been found to experience the same symptoms humans experience when they give up smoking.
These worms can sometimes be found in rubbish tips, where they feed on bacteria.
New Marston Wildlife Group
If you would
like information on the New Marston Wildlife Group, which is always
pleased to recruit new members, please e-mail Curt Lamberth:
Members of the group receive newsletters with
details of forthcoming events, what is happening
regarding wildlife locally and additional related
information. To see a sample newsletter, click
here.
The
Milham Ford Park
web page has links to slideshows of
some of the group's past activities in the park and to a
plan of the park, with links to photos of the different
areas.
Information on
other past NMWG activities can be found by clicking
here.
An excellent year for spiders
Last year's wet autumn and this year's temperate summer led to a big increase in the number of spiders, following a significant drop in 2007.
The increase is good news for birds: "It's debatable whether some of our resident insect-eating birds, like the wren, would be able to survive the winter without a plentiful supply of spiders in leaf litter and under shrubbery", said Ian Dawson of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
Garden Spider
Araneus diadematus
"One house spider will catch and dispose of 20 or so flies for you," said Matt Shardlow, director of Buglife.
See BBC and Guardian article websites, both 25 Sept 2009.
Oxford Core Strategy 2026 - Hearings
To see notes on the sessions about Climate Change and the Natural & Built Environments, click here
The Jack Straw's
Lane Association endorsed concerns expressed by
the New Marston Wildlife Group regarding
the lack of protection for biodiversity and
wildlife corridors offered by the latest version
of the Core Strategy. The JSLA comments were
based on a detailed submission (about 10 pages
long) on behalf of the New Marston Wildlife
Group, prepared by Dr Curt Lamberth and Dr
Susan Mallett, which indicated shortfalls in
protection and highlighted incidences of
non-compliance with current legislation. The
comments form, signed by Dr Peter Sargent, JSLA
Chairman, can be seen by clicking on the two
links below:
Oxford City Council - Core Strategy website -
click
here
Red-green Carpet Moth
Chloroclysta siterata
Jack Straw's Lane 23 10 2009
Despite its name, the larvae of this moth do NOT feed on carpet fibres but on various deciduous trees, especially oak (Quercus) and rowan (Sorbus aucuparia).
'Carpet Moths' are so-called because early naturalists thought they looked like exotic eastern carpets.
It's an autumn species, seen in September and October.
It hibernates as an adult and flies again in
early spring.
British Hedgehog Preservation Society
For info on how to create a wildlife garden to attract birds, butterflies, bees and hedgehogs, click here
Natural England, an organisation that champions the conservation of wildlife, geology and wild places in England, has an excellent website with a search facility for plants you can introduce to your garden that benefit wildlife.
Environmental damage cased by modern
farming methods
A carpet of algae, fed by legal nutrients flushed into water from farms and sewage works, has been clogging parts of the English coastline since the 1960s. Recent tighter controls on the use of fertilisers and upgrades to some sewage works should result in a gradual improvement, but this will take at least 10 years. See short BBC video.