All A Matter Of Timing
For humans it seems a blessing that February is the shortest month: cold, wet and horrible, most people are glad to see the back of it. But no matter how wintry February seems, Spring really is just around the corner. Plants and animals need to be ready for it , as in our seasonal climate good timing is the key to successful breeding. Flower buds must be formed, territories must be set up, breeding plumage on, ready for the real start of spring. But with February weather being so erratic, plants and animals need a more reliable indicator of the changing season. So for many species it’s day length that triggers their preparations for Spring, although they may fine tune their timing according to weather.
Many plants are ready to flower in February and only need a little warmth to complete the process. South facing sheltered hedge banks are the places to look for the earliest primroses. Near where I live the lane through Fairoak had primroses, campion, stitchwort, and celandine all in bloom before St David’s Day last year.
There’s nothing that can stop days lengthening so, unless we have blizzards, by the end of the month many of our common garden birds will be singing again, joining in with the robins who’ve sung all winter to maintain their territories. Chaffinches and mistle thrushes are often the first, then song thrushes and in a good year the odd enthusiastic blackbird will be in fine voice before March.
Badger breeding is all about timing too. Cubs are born this month, blind and pink, the size of doughnuts. Food is scarce right now, but the cubs will be weaned in late Spring just when it’s is at its most plentiful. Immediately after giving birth the females come into season and mate. But they won’t give birth until next February. That doesn’t mean that badgers are pregnant for a year! They store their fertilised eggs until December and they are only truly pregnant over the worst of the winter.
If you can endure the cold, February can be a rewarding month for badger watching, as the boars get very enthusiastic in their attempts to woo the sows, and some exciting chases and fights can ensue.
There are a fair proportion of Britain’s fifteen or so species of bat around here, including two of the rarest the Greater Horseshoe and Lesser Horseshoe bats. On milder nights in February bats will be on the wing foraging for winter flying moths and the ever present midges. It was so mild before Christmas that there were bats out on many nights in December, and I had a pipistrelle in my kitchen on New Years Day. Bats do hibernate through the winter but they don’t stay asleep for the whole time. If there’s the chance of an insect meal they’ll come out to top up their food reserves. Timing is all important for their breeding too. So females store sperm from Autumn matings until the spring, when insect food becomes abundant and good meals trigger ovulation and pregnancy. But that’s still a couple of months away. For the time being, they, just like humans are holding out for the warmer weather.
Brookesia Blog 