In a rather unusual experiment llamas have been brought in to protect birds at a RSPB reserve. The reserve has problems with predators such as foxes taking the birds eggs and chicks. It is hoped that the llamas will act as guards during the nesting season. Llamas are known to be highly territorial and are already used as livestock guards in some areas. The Prince of Wales for example uses alpacas to protect lambs from foxes during the lambing season on his farm at Highgrove.

The Island of Canna one of the Hebridean islands spent £600,000 solving it’s rat problem nearly four ago. Since then the island which had been plagued by rats has a new problem. The rats are long gone but they now appear to have a rabbit problem. It seems that the lack of rats has created a gap in the food chain and with no rats to keep the rabbit population down, they are becoming something of a problem. There are now thousands of rabbits devastating local crops and and even damaging local monuments. The islands only restaurant has started putting rabbit on the menu in an effort to take advantage of the situation but the rabbit problem does not appear to be under control. It’s clear here that there are consequences to messing with the local populations of animals but at least rabbits are tasty, perhaps they should eat a few more of them.

According to this article jam making is starting to become more popular. Whether it’s due to the fact that people are trying to make more food from scratch or that they are becoming more creative in the kitchen is not clear. It does seem, however, that there has been a recent rise in jam making equipment such as clip jars. Personally I have never tried making my own jam, but having recently moved to a house with several fruit trees in the garden, I might have to give it a try.

This plane is thought to be the world’s biggest model aircraft. Built by Tony Nijhuis in his garage the aircraft is a scale version of a Boeing B-50 Superfortress. It has a 20ft wingspan and weighs about seven stone. It took two years to make plane and cost around £8,000. The aircraft has 96 batteries that power four electric motors. It can manage around 8 minutes in the air before it needs to be recharged.

According to this article 3D televisions have recently gone on sale at John Lewis. Their flagship store has started selling a Samsung 47 inch 3D TV. The TV is on sale for £1,800 but in order to experience the full effect you will also need to purchase a pair of 3D glasses which cost £200. This could get a little expensive if you have to buy glasses for the whole family. Apparently you will also need to own a Blu Ray player in order to watch anything in 3D as there will be no other content available until Sky launches their 3D channel in June. I’m not sure I will be splashing out on one just yet.

This lotus plant is unusual because it was grown from a seed that is thought to be 700 years old. The seed which dates back to Korea’s Goryeo Dynasty was one of 10 discovered during the excavation of an ancient castle last year. Scientists have confirmed that at least two of the seeds are 650 and 750 years old. All ten seeds were planted to see if anything would grow. So far three of the others have spouted and the other one has produced this plant.

Spring is here and with several fruit trees the garden is full of blossom. Here are a few pictures of the cherry and apple blossoms. One of the wild primroses and some shrubs that I am yet to find out the names of. And of course I have also included a picture of one of my cats surveying his garden. Click the images for larger versions.

According to this article Sony have announced they will stop producing floppy disks. The move comes 30 years after they started selling them. The company will stop making them in March next year after sales of disks crashed from 47million in 2002 to 12 million in 2009. It seems with the widespread use of memory sticks and external hard drives, people just don’t need the floppy disk anymore.

This little guy is Einstein who at 14 inches high is the world’s smallest horse. Einstein is only three days old and weighs just 6lbs. Despite his size he shows no signs of dwarfism, he is simply a small horse. It will be interesting to see how big he gets when he is full grown.

According to this article excessive cleaning has led to a massive rise in the number of people suffering from allergies. It seems that an overly sterile environment can in fact you make more prone to allergies. Around 30% of the Western population currently suffer from allergies with one in ten children being diagnosed as asthmatic. If the article is to be believed a great deal of this might be down to the fact that are houses are simply too clean and children are unable to develop immunities to common allergens. I am certainly convinced as its a good excuse to clean the house less.

Scientists from the University of Auckland have shown another example of crows using complex problem solving techniques.  In previous experiments it has been shown that crows are somewhat smarter than the average bird. The latest research shows that they are able to work out how to use three tools in succession in order to get to a food source. In the diagram above the crow uses the string which is attached to perch (1) to reach the short stick attached to the string (2). The short stick is used to reach the long stick out-of-reach behind bars (3) and the out of reach scrap of meat (4)is eventually hooked out using the long stick. You can see the crows in action in the video in the original article. Crows have previously been know to craft their own tools in order to reach pieces of food that would usually not be accessible. The fact that they can use multiple tools to solve problems often on the first attempt shows that they are innovative problem solvers on the level of primates. I might start making some tests for the crows in my garden to see what they make of them.

Photo traps have been added to parts of the Cairngorms National Park in an effort to find out more about the Scottish wildcats that live there. The camera traps include motion detectors and infra red technology which allow them to capture images of passing animals. They have already produced some images of wildcats and other creatures including a golden eagle. It is thought that there are currently only around 400 Scottish wildcat left in the wild. One of the main threats to the species is interbreeding with domestic animals which threatens the purity of the species.

One restaurant in Mildura, Victoria, Australia   has come up with an unusual way to deal with a local influx of locusts. They have started using them as pizza toppings. The town has been plagued by millions of the insects so the town mayor came up with the idea. Apparently the locusts make perfect toppings because you can just pop outside and collect them and then bake them in the oven until they are crispy before adding them to the pizza. The pizzas are proving to be quite popular and the locusts add a nice crunchy topping.