Comma caterpillars feed on elm, nettles and hops. The adults hibernate and emerge in early spring, producing a second generation from July to early October.
It was the second time in as many weeks that I had spotted a brown hare in this Kinross-shire field, and this one was moving with real purpose. The reason soon became apparent because suddenly another hare, hidden in the grass, reared-up before it and there was a temporary stand-off.
I must be getting soft, for tears began to well in my eyes as I watched this spider monkey work her way across the rainforest canopy with a tiny baby clinging tenaciously to her belly.
The jay is a member of the crow family and is locally common in parts of Courier country. They love to feast upon acorns in the autumn and will bury them for retrieval later.
Climate change is causing other impacts upon our seas, including changes in fish distribution, with species like cod moving further northwards, and warmer water fish such as red mullet moving in from the south.
The ocean quahog is also sometimes known as the Icelandic cyprine. They live buried in sand, with just a small siphon tube extending up to the surface of the seabed.
Red-breasted mergansers belong to a group of ducks known as the ‘sawbills’, so called because of the serrated edges to their bills, designed for gripping slippery fish.
Formerly absent due to persecution, pine martens now occur throughout much of Courier Country, with a recent survey detecting their presence in Perthshire, Stirlingshire, Angus and Fife.
Ravens are intelligent and enshrined in our folklore from the earliest of times and until recently relatively scarce birds in Scotland. The population is now recovering in many parts of the country.
Fox cubs are able to start catching their own food by about six weeks in age. They become progressively independent and usually leave the natal territory within their first year.