Friday, 28 June 2013

Friday 28 June .
We have an oak tree in our garden, it is one of our favourite trees because we have attached a swing to it.  Today me and my brothers placed a white sheet on the ground underneath the tree, Leo and Caspar shook it as hard as they could to see what would fall out.  I was quite excited because quite a few things fell out, then I realised that most of it was leaves and bits of tree, only 3 were creatures.  This is what we found; an unidentified tiny spider, an unidentified tiny fly and a Striped Oak Bug.  We have learnt that the Oak Bug eats other bug nymphs and aphids.  When it is a nymph in the springtime it feeds on baby catkins.  The adult bug only lives from May to July. 

         
We are very lucky to have Curlews nesting in the field opposite our house.  Their haunting call is one of the happy signs of spring that we  look forward to.  They arrive in May  to build a nest in the long grass and when they have hatched and raised their chicks they go back to the coast, at the end of July.  When Mum found this photograph, I was really surprised by it's long beak. We think it has a long beak because it eats shellfish, worms and shrimps which it might have to push it's beak underground for and it's legs are long for wading, therefore it might need such a long beak to reach the ground. 

Caspar's Camera Trap: This week we caught a fox (which we think looks quite young) and a squirrel which looked like it was searching for food.
 These are the first animals I have caught on the camera :) 
 As this seems to be a good spot I have left it there for another week.
 


1 comment:

  1. Hi Maddy, I love your blog which is well written and very interesting. I have learnt some fascinating facts one of which was that 'wort' means medicine. I was thrilled to see that Caspar's camera caught a fox and a squirrel. Brilliant! Sally

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