Sign 1: A Closer Look ….

The Log Pile

We hope you enjoyed exploring the log piles and found some interesting creatures living there. These logs and trees are left on purpose to provide homes for Crustaceans like woodlice, Insects like beetles, and millipedes, as well as slugs and snails! They’re important for birds such as Wren and Thrushes, and animals such as badgers, hedgehogs and foxes.  

What are Crustaceans? 

Crustaceans are a very large group of animals with exoskeletons (their skeleton is on the outside). So in order to grow they have to throw away their old skeleton (moult) and grow a new one! There are 67,000 different Crustacean species ranging from tiny shrimps at 01. mm to a huge Japanese spider crab with a leg span of up to 3.8m! 

Horse Chestnut Trees:

These trees can live for 300 years and produce ‘conkers’ – covered by a green spiky jacket, these brown seeds make for a great game!  The trees have pretty white and pink flowers in the spring. 

Why are the trees looking ill?

The leaf-mining moth came to Britain in 2002 and has spread quickly since then. Its caterpillars eat inside horse chestnut leaves, making brown or white spots appear on the leaves in late summer.

Goldcrest:

Many people don’t know the answer to the quiz question ‘What is Britain’s smallest bird?’ The answer is the Goldcrest, which is even smaller than a Wren.

The stripe that gives the bird its name has been described as glittering like ‘burnished gold’, or glowing like ‘a lemon yellow flame’, but at times it can be difficult to see. 

Its voice is comparably tiny. Have a listen for the thin, high-pitched call or the more rhythmic song, which has been described as a ‘wonderful silver toned tinkle’ that can suggest ‘the turning of a badly oiled wheel’!