Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2017 | Page 74

Country life
w
The mating season
By Lianne de Mello, Hampshire
& Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust
With Valentine’s day around the corner, it’s a fantastic time to see
our incredible wildlife’s courtship and mating habits. Here’s the
Wildlife Trust’s guide to some of the weird and wonderful things
our local wildlife gets up to at this time of year.
Spring is the start of the breeding
season for many birds, including
one of our most common birds,
the chaffinch. At this time of year
the youngest male birds begin
to establish and defend their
territory, often in woodlands like
the Wildlife Trust’s Bouldnor
Forest nature reserve and
our back gardens. During the
breeding season the males’ start
their courtship in spring with a
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melodious song and showing off
their bright plumage, and females
use the quality of the song to help
them choose the strongest mate.
Meanwhile on our lakes and
wetlands, the magnificent great
crested grebe’s beautiful display
is incredible to see. One bird
will shallow dive, only to surface
immediately in front of its intended
mate. If all is going well the water
ballet begins. With orange and
black head plumes spread wide, an
elegant ritual of head shaking, bill-
dipping and preening culminates in
the famous ‘penguin dance’, when
the pair rush together, paddling
their feet frantically to raise upright
from the water, standing chest to
chest, flicking a beak-full of water
weed at each other before one final
shake of the head and the weed is
dropped, and the deal is clinched.
Birds aren’t the only species to