ScienceDaily (Oct. 4, 2009) — The catastrophic decline around the world of “apex” predators such as wolves, cougars, lions or sharks has led to a huge increase in smaller “mesopredators” that are causing major economic and ecological disruptions, a new study concludes.

Amur Leopard Cat (photo Rich Lindie)

I was in South Korea last week and Rich Lindie and his partner Hayley took me out for a great day’s mammal watching. They found me my first Finless Porpoise under the Namhae Grand Bridge then took me to Seosan where – despite the terrible weather – we saw a stack of Raccoon Dogs, Water Deer and Amur Leopard Cats (check out Rich’s Amur Leopard Cat photo – they are very different to the oriental flavour).

A big big thanks to Rich and Hayley – they knew exactly where to find the animals and also make the best sandwiches in Korea!

Some pictures and more information are in my Korean page

Jon

An interesting article on the origins of the Flaklands Island Wolf

New Clues To Extinct Falklands Wolf Mystery (November 3, 2009) — Ever since the Falklands wolf was described by Darwin himself, the origin of this now-extinct canid found only on the Falkland Islands far off the east coast of Argentina has remained a mystery. Now, researchers who have compared DNA from four of the world’s dozen or so known Falklands wolf museum specimens to that of living canids offer new insight into the evolutionary ancestry of these enigmatic carnivores. … > full story

Hi all,

I photographed a couple of interesting bats in Senegal last month. The first, leaf-nosed type one I’m quite confident is Hipposideros cyclops, known as Woolly Leaf-nosed Bat. it was a pretty large guy (about 35 cm wingspan) that came into our camp’s kitchen taking cover from a thunderstorm, at Wassadou, 50 km east of Tambacounda (www.niokolo.com).

The second is one of the many African epauletted fruit bats species; from the location I’m guessing Epomophorus gambianus, but I’d appreciate any input as for its ID. It was hanging from the ceiling at a hotel in Tabakouta, not far from Gambia’s northern border.

Other interesting mammals included Patas and Vervet monkeys, Western Red Colobus, Guinea Baboons, Large Grey (or Egyptian) Mongoose, Golden Jackal, and unidentified genets and probable galagos at wassadou; unfortunately these weren’t seen under good enough light (we had storms almost every night), but the place seemed to have great potential for later in the dry season.

The reserve of Guembeul next to St Louis has free range Scimitar Oryx and Dama Gazelle, and Dorcas Gazelle in enclosures, waiting for reintroduction. Many of these come from the Sahara Wildlife Reserve in Almeria, Spain, where they have been bred for many years.

Best,

Ignacio Yúfera

www.iyufera.com

I read a post by Curtis Hart on Lonely Planet in which he reported seeing a black-footed ferret on a ranch in Arizona. I didn’t even know black-footed ferrets could be found there. Is this ranch open to the public? Any other good ferret watching spots?

This is old news, but here are some nice clips of two – apparently new mammals – that were discovered during this BBC doco in PNG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LogVmP7HpA&feature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uP-kOPirdg&feature=channel

A couple of new trip reports are up on mammalwatching.com at the bottom of the pages linked below

Ardnarmurchan Peninsula, Scotland 2009: Mike Richardson, 1 week and 17 species including a Wild Cat this time.

Finland 2009: Derek Shingles, 2 weeks and 7 species including a Saimaa Ringed Seal and Raccoon Dogs.
keep them coming! Jon

Near the bank of the River Thames at Richmond one evening we watched bats in the dusk.  There were two distinct types; one was small, about the same size as I’d “expect” UK bats to be, having seen plenty in country lanes on evening walks before.  But the other type was much larger in comparison – probably double the size, though I can only give a relative measurement as it was too dark to guess a measurement properly.

Would anyone be able to hazard a guess about the larger type of bat?

19th-26th September 2009

We spent a week on Mull, based in the south-east which gives the best access to all parts of the island. The weather was almost entirely overcast, with rain on all days and westerly winds. The island is best explored by car, as there are relatively few good paths or trails in many parts.

Red deer – several times on the Auchnacraig estate west of Loch Don, and a great view of a stag on a clifftop way above our heads at the Gribin cliffs.  They’re fairly common all over Mull.

Fallow deer – along the road to Loch Buie and also in the woods of the Ben More estate; Loch Buie is apparently a good spot for them.

Stoat – crossing the Craignure-Tobermory road in daylight.

Harbour seals – offshore along the east coast near Salen, and in the cove at Grasspoint.

Grey seals – a large colony including new pups on the Treshnish Isles; the Turus Mara boat from Ulva Ferry allows you ashore and within a few metres of the seals.  This boat trip (which also takes in Staffa) is recommended as it has a decent chance of spotting cetaceans too.  However, the sea was rather wild on the day we went and it was also out of seasons for most of them.

European rabbit – plentiful.

Eurasian Otter – we had twelve sightings in total, of seven different animals.  Grasspoint was a good location as there is a very reliable otter fishing around that point; we saw him two days out of five.  As a general tip: if a group of seabirds take off suddenly, it’s worth scanning the rocks where they were perched as it may be an otter.  Our most successful location for sighting otters was Loch Spelve, where the road runs very close to the lochside for much of its length.  Drive slowly, with the passenger as spotter – kerb crawling for otters!  The most likely spot will be the otter fishing a few yards off-shore, as on the shore they are almost indistinguishable from rocks.  Otters seem undisturbed by moving vehicles, so if you spot one you need to roll on and pull over a little further on, then come back carefully on foot.  The other sightings were at the top of Loch Beg, off the north coast of Ulva, and on the north coast of Loch na Keal.  It would be wrong to generalise that otters are only seen on a falling tide.  From people we talked to and our own inferences, coastal otters are most likely to be resting in a holt at high tide, coming out to begin hunting at some point on the falling tide and potentially remaining active until the next high tide.

Birds – it’s worth making a mention of the wonderful raptors we saw on Mull.  White-tailed sea eagles, golden eagles, hen harriers, buzzards, peregrine falcons and a barn owl – pretty good when we were mainly looking for otters!

And on a final note: when I arrived back at work, I discovered that in my absence the office (in Hemel Hempstead) was suffering an infestation of Edible dormice (Glis glis)!  There is apparently a stable feral population in a small area north of London, though I had no idea they would willing come into human habitat and forage on desks.  I saw the footprints, but no-one has seen the animals.