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The life of the European bee-eater
A brilliant movement of colour as it catches its food in the air, the European bee-eater moves between three continents.
True to their name, bee-eaters eat bees (though their diet includes just about any Fying insect). When the bird catches a bee, it returns to its tree to get rid of the bee’s poison, which it does very efficiently. It hits the insect’s head on one side OF the branch, then rubs its body on the other. The rubbing makes its prey harmless.
European bee-eaters (Merops apiaster) form Families that breed in the spring and summer across an area that extends from Spain to Kazakhstan. Farmland and river valleys provide huge numbers of insects. Flocks of bee-eaters Follow tractors ds they work Gelds. When the birds come upon a beehive, they eat well – a researcher once Found a hundred bees in the stomach of a bee-eater near a hive.
European bees pass the winter by sleeping in their hives, which cuts offfthe bee-eater’s main source of food. So, in late summer, bee-eaters begin a long, dangerous journey. Massive Rocks from Spain, France and northern Italy cross the Sahara desert to their wintering grounds in West Africa. Bee-eaters from Hungary and other parts OF Central and Eastern Europe cross the Mediterranean Sea and Arabian Desert to winter in southern Africa. ‘It’s an extremely risky stratagem, this migration,’ says C. Hilary Fry, a British ornithologist who has studied European bee eaters for more than 45 years. ‘At least 30 percent of the birds will be killed by predators before they make it back to Europe the Following spring.’
In April, they return to Europe. Birds build nests by digging tunnels in riverbanks. They work for up to 20 days. By the end of the job, they’ve moved 15 to 26 pounds of soil – more than 80 times their weight.
The nesting season is a time when families help each other, and sons or uncles help Feed their father’s or brother’s chicks as soon as they come out of their eggs. The helpers benefit, too parents with helpers can provide more food for chicks to continue the family line.
It’s a short, spectacular life. bee-eaters live for five to six years. The difficulties of migration and avoiding predators along the way affect every bird. Bee-eaters today also find it harder to find food, as there are fewer insects around as a result of pesticides. Breeding sites are also disappearing, as rivers ate turned into concrete walled canals.
Humpback whale breaks migration record
A whale surprises researchers with her journey.
A lone humpback whale travelled more than 9,800 kilometres from breeding areas in Brazil to those in Madagascar, setting a record for the longest mammal migration ever documented.
Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are known to have some of the longest migration distances of all mammals, and this huge journey is about 400 kilometres farther than the previous humpback record. The finding was made by Peter Stevick, a biologist at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.
The whale’s journey was unusual not only for its length, but also because it travelled across almost 90 degrees of longitude from west to east. Typically, humpbacks move in a north— south direction between cold feeding areas and warm breeding grounds — and the longest journeys which have been recorded until now have been between breeding and feeding sites.
The whale, a female, was first spotted off the coast of Brazil, where researchers photographed its tail fluke and took skin samples for chromosome testing to determine the animal’s sex. Two years later, a tourist on a whale watching boat snapped a photo of the humpback near Madagascar.
To match the two sightings, Stevick’s team used an extensive international catalogue of photographs of the undersides of tail nukes, which have distinctive markings. Researchers routinely compare the markings in each new photograph to those in the archive.
The scientists then estimated the animal’s shortest possible route: an arc skirting the southern tip of South Africa and heading north east towards Madagascar. The minimum distance is 9,800 kilometres, says Stevick, but this is likely to be an underestimate, because the whale probably took a detour to feed on krill in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica before reaching its destination.
Most humpback-whale researchers focus their efforts on the Northern Hemisphere because the Southern Ocean near the Antarctic is a hostile environment and it is hard to get to, explains Rochelle Constantine, who studies the ecology of humpback whales at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. But, for whales, oceans in the Southern Hemisphere are wider and easier to travel across, says Constantine. Scientists will probably observe more long-distance migrations in the Southern Hemisphere as satellite tracking becomes increasingly common, she adds.
Daniel Palacios, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, says that the record-breaking journey could indicate that migration patterns are shifting as populations begin to recover from near-extinction and the population increases. But the reasons why the whale did not follow the usual migration routes remain a mystery. She could have been exploring new habitats, or simply have lost her way. ‘We generally think of humpback whales as very well studied, but then they surprise us with things like this,’ Palacios says. ‘Undoubtedly there are a lot of things we still don’t know about whale migration,’
The honey badger
It looks harmless and vulnerable. But the honey badger is afraid of nothing… and will attack and eat almost anything
The honey badger (Melivora capensis), is an African and south-Asian mammal that has a reputation for being one of the world’s most fearless animals, despite its small size. And in spite of its gentle-sounding name, it is also one of its most aggressive.
Honey badgers have been known to attack lions, buffalo, and snakes three times their size. Even humans are not safe from a honey badger if it thinks the human will attack or harm it. They are also extremely tough creatures, and can recover quickly from injuries that would kill most other animals.
At first glance, honey badgers look like the common European badger. They are usually between 75cm and 1 metre long, although males are about twice the size of females. They are instantly recognisable by grey and white stripes that extend from the top of the head to the tail. Closer inspection, which is probably not a wise thing to do, reveals pointed teeth, and sharp front claws which can be four centimetres in length.
Honey badgers are meat-eating animals with an extremely varied diet. They mainly eat a range of small creatures like beetles, lizards and birds, but will also catch larger reptiles like snakes and small crocodiles. Some mammals, such as foxes, antelope and wild cats also form part of their diet.
The badgers locate their prey mainly using their excellent sense of smell, and catch most of their prey through digging. During a 24- hour period,
they may dig as many as fifty holes, and travel more than 40 kilometres. They are also good climbers, and can easily climb very tall trees to steal eggs from birds’ nests, or catch other tree dwelling creatures. As their name suggests, honey badgers have always been associated with honey, although they do not actually eat it. It is the highly nutritious bee eggs (called ‘brood’) that they prefer, and they will do anything to find it. They usually cause a lot of damage to the hive in the process, and for this reason, humans are one of their main predators. Bee-keepers will often set special traps for honey badgers, to protect their hives. One of the most fascinating aspects of the honey badger is its working relationship with a bird called the greater honeyguide (Indicator indicator). This bird deliberately guides the badger to beehives, then waits while the badger breaks into the hive and extracts the brood. The two creatures, bird and mammal, then share the brood between them.
On the trail of the honey badger
Researchers learn more about this fearless African predator
On a recent field trip to the Kalahari Desert, a team of researchers learnt a lot more about honey badgers. They were rewarded with a detailed insight into how these fascinating creatures live and hunt
The team employed a local wildlife expert, Kitso Khama, to help them locate and follow the badgers across the desert. Their main aim was to study the badgers’ movements and behaviour as discreetly as possible, without frightening them away or causing them to change their natural behaviour. They also planned to trap a few and study them close up before releasing them. In view of the animal’s reputation, this was something that even Khama was reluctant to do.
‘The problem with honey badgers is they are naturally curious animals, especially when they see something new,’ he says, ‘That, combined with their unpredictable nature, can be a dangerous mixture. If they sense you have food, for example, they won’t be shy about coming right UP to you for something to eat. They’re actually quite sociable creatures around humans, but as soon as they feel they might be in danger, they can become extremely vicious. Fortunately this is rare, but it does happen.’
The research confirmed many things that were already known. As expected, honey badgers ate any creatures they could catch and kill. Even poisonous snakes, feared and avoided by most other animals, were not safe from them. The researchers were surprised, however, by the animal’s fondness for local melons, probably because of their high water content. Previously researchers thought that the animal80t all of its liquid requirements from its prey. The team also learnt that, contrary to previous research findings, the badgers occasionally formed loose family groups. They were also able to confirm certain results from previous research, including the fact that female badgers never socialised with each other.
Following some of the male badgers was a challenge, since they can cover large distances in a short space of time. Some hunting territories cover more than 500 square kilometres. Although they seem happy to share these territories with other males, there are occasional fights over an important food source, and male badgers can be as aggressive towards each other as they are towards other species.
As the badgers became accustomed to the presence of people, it gave the team the chance to get up close to them without being the subject of the animals’ curiosity – or their sudden aggression. The badgers’ eating patterns, which had been disrupted, returned to normal- It also allowed the team to observe more closely some of the other creatures that form working associations with the honey badger, as these seemed to adopt the badgers’ relaxed attitude when near humans.
