The melodius call of the male cuckoo can now be heard on the South Downs so summer must be here!  All the way over from the African winter the male arrives first and make its characteristic call.  The female arrive 10 days or so later but her call is more like a woodpecker than a cuckoo.  She will search around in woods, large parks, field groves and even overgrown graveyards to find a small songbird’s nest in which to lay her egg.  The newly hatched cuckoo is naked and very sensitive to any object near it – consequently it throws everything out of the nest including the other eggs!

Now is the season of the mayfly – its arrival depends basically on various weather conditions: rainfall, water temperature and hours of sunshine. The resulting information isn’t always completely accurate, and entomologists and meteorologists can never agree on quite how these factors affect it, but between mid-May and the beginning of June the mayfly appears after two years in larval form underwater and spends only a day or two basking in the spring sunshine. This period is known as “Duffer’s fortnight” because as the mayfly appears so all the trout rush for a good feed and the fishing becomes easy enough for any amateur fisherman!

Thousands, if not millions, of Psyllids (pictured above) are to be released as part of a plan in the fight against Japanese Knotweed, according to the Daily Telegraph. These creatures, which are only the size of a grain of sand, keep the plant under control in Japan and experts are hoping that the same will happen here. Scientists assure us, after carrying out extensive tests, that they will not attack any other plants, or British wildlife.

Welcome to Simon Mahoney who started on Tuesday 6th May 2008 as a new consultant.  He is a biologist having studied his degree at Sussex, so this is home from home for him!  He has spent the last few years working in the building trade so he is now back doing what he has always been interested in.