Autumn
Activity: Piece of wood
Mid - September - November
Lesser Stag Beetle
Centipede
Event: Spiders
Mid - September - November
Large Hedgerow Spider
Event: Ladybirds
Mid - September - November
7-Spot
Ladybird
Place: In your house
Mid - September - November
Oak Bush Cricket
Take a small log, with bark, perhaps lopped off a tree in your garden or found in a wood (but
don’t take an old log away that already has invertebrates settled within or underneath it).
Place it in a damp shady spot in your garden. Gently roll over or prop up your log safely by 10
cm or so periodically, say once a week or so, to see what animals are there. You may see:
• Earthworms
• Woodlice
• Slugs
• Snails
• Millipedes
• Centipedes
• Beetles
• Spiders (in autumn).
Count the numbers in each category and then replace the log carefully. There are insect, snail
and slug, and spider guides available, which you can use if you want to identify the animals
under your log more precisely. Monitor the animal life under your log in winter too – are
there any invertebrates there during cold snaps? If your log is pine, cedar or ash, you may
be lucky enough (in late summer or early autumn) to have it invaded by a spectacular female
wood wasp looking for wood in which to lay her eggs. The female has a long ‘tail’ which isn’t a
horrendous sting, but is in fact a structure known as an ovipositor, which is used to bore 1 cm
deep holes in the wood into which eggs are laid.
Spiders are found everywhere; good places are old pastures and riverbanks. They are all
carnivorous but not all make webs to catch their prey. Some run across the ground, look for
them in short grassland or even on bare earth. Others patrol over leaves looking for unwary
insects to pounce upon. Most spiders however make webs and this is the obvious sign of their
presence. Look on hedgerows and vegetation, especially early in the morning, to see their
shiny webs. The owner may be present in the middle of the
web or lurking nearby.
Ladybirds are small beetles; they especially like to eat aphids. You can find ladybirds on all
sorts of plants, and in many habitats. The brightly coloured adults are relatively easy to spot
on the vegetation but it’s worth searching for their larvae in June and July. You’ll find them on
many different plants but they will always be near a source of aphids. The new adults emerge
in mid to late summer when they feed for a while before hibernating over winter. Look for
them in sheltered places like under leaves, in piles of sticks, hollow stems or cracks in the
bark. Be careful not to disturb them.
When the weather starts to get cooler some insects find houses good places to retreat to.
The days will be getting shorter and lights in the house in the evening attract moths and
crane flies. Butterflies, like peacocks and red admirals look for a place to over-winter and
a house seems a suitable place. Wasps and bees often fly in through open windows and
doors and when the temperature drops at night, become sluggish and crawl rather than fly.
Less common visitors you should look out for are bush crickets – long ‘kicking’ hind legs,
long antennae and about 2 cms long. Two species seem particularly keen to get into houses.
Both are green coloured. The oak bush cricket has wings; the speckled bush cricket doesn’t.
Females have a long, sword-like extension to their rear, for laying eggs. If temperatures
continue to rise, as a result of global warming, these bush crickets will probably move
further north and become more common.
 Winter
Activity: Woodlice choices

November - March In the South and the Midlands, you may find woodlice sheltering under logs or dead
vegetation in winter as long as the weather is not freezing. Woodlice don’t have a completely
waterproof cuticle (‘skin’), and they breathe by gills, which have to be kept wet. So is their
liking for being sheltered in the dark under a damp log linked to their preference for humidity
or darkness? Design an experiment to investigate woodlice habitat preferences using simple
equipment made from items that may be found in your waste bin! You can make a simple
choice chamber for woodlice using a round empty ice cream tub or an old biscuit tin. Cover
half with black paper or cardboard, to make a ‘dark side’. Add some woodlice and leave them
Common Rough for 20 minutes or so to see if they congregate in the light or dark side. Making a dry and a
Woodlouse damp side in your biscuit tin is not so easy. You could try putting dry sand or sieved soil in one
half and wet sand or soil in the other, separating the two areas with polythene so the water
doesn’t spread into the ‘dry’ side. Add some woodlice and leave them for 20 minutes or so to
see if they congregate in the dry or damp side. Return the woodlice to where you found them
when you have finished your investigation. Go to open2.net to find out more about woodlice
behaviour.

Place: Compost Heap

November - March A compost heap is a complex and efficient eco-system. Plant waste of many kinds is broken
down physically and chemically by microbes and small invertebrates to yield a rich compost
that can be used to nourish other plants – the ultimate in recycling! A compost heap is home
to some very important and active creatures. You may be able to see some of them, such as
worms and beetles, if you dig out a bit of the heap, and you may also see toadstools made by
some of the many species of fungi that live there. But there are plenty of species that you
can’t see with the naked eye – the microbes.
The life in the compost heap is a wonderful community, with different species undertaking
Centipede different steps in the whole process of transformation of rubbish into plant food. Some
species live off the waste products of others; some, near the surface of the heap, need
oxygen, while others, deep inside, don’t. The exact mix of species depends on what waste goes
onto the heap. On a cold day you’ll see your compost heap steaming – this is because of the
heat produced by all the chemical activity taking place inside. You don’t need much space for a
compost heap – about 1 m2 – and it’s a great way to get free compost from your garden and
kitchen leftovers. Many local authorities run composting schemes because they know what a
good way it is to recycle.

For more information about

this and other programmes
go to open2.net
Spring
Activity: Counting cockchafers (maybugs)

Mid - September - November
Elephant Hawk Moth
Maybug
Activity: Caterpillars
In the evening at dusk switch on a light in your house and keep the curtains open but windows
closed so the light shines out and you can see all the flying insects attracted to the light.
Keep a count of the number of individuals of:
(a) moths
(b) cockchafers
(c) other insects.
It’s difficult to be sure you’re not counting the same individual more than once when they
are all flying round so the numbers will only be approximate. Do the count for half an hour in
April-May-June. You could do it on just one evening or do it on several days and plot a graph
of the numbers of insects each day, also record the weather conditions when you make the
observation. Is it warm (say more than 10°C) or cold, and is it dry or raining? If you are not
sure what maybugs are then they are shown in insect field-guides and there are plenty of
websites with photos. They spend 3-4 years underground as a larva before hatching out into
a large brown beetle which buzzes around often banging into windows in the evening. The
larvae were once thought of as an agricultural pest as they feed on roots but the numbers
have declined substantially in recent years so it’s no longer a pest. Cockchafers still occur
throughout Britain. You may want to send in your records of moths, cockchafers and other
insects in to the forum section on open2.net and see how many insects other people have
found in other parts of the country.

April - June There are over five thousand species of butterfly and moth in the UK. The caterpillar is the
eating stage in their lives and may increase it’s size by over 30,000 times after hatching
from the egg. They may grow to just a few millimetres in size to something the size of your
little finger. Caterpillars may be found on all types of plants; look for the signs of activity like
nibbled leaves. The caterpillar may be hidden under a leaf or camouflaged against the stem,
so look carefully. Spring and summer are the best times to find caterpillars but some species
Mullein Moth hibernate in winter in piles of leaf litter.
Catepillar

Place: Garden

April - June Queen bumblebees emerge in spring from their winter hibernation and search for nectar and
pollen immediately, as they need food to provide them with energy to search for a nest site,
which they can prepare and then lay their eggs. Bumblebees have declined in recent years
because of the reduction in plant diversity. The decline is bad news, as we need bumblebees
to pollinate many of our fruit and vegetable crops. Anyone with a garden, patio or even a
window box can help bumblebees, especially in the crucial period in spring when the queen
bumblebees need food. Choose plants that have flowers that are attractive to bumblebees.
Important spring flowers include:
Bumblebee
(a) Pulmonaria
(b) Primroses
(c) Celandines
(d) Rosemary.
Plant borage, sage, thyme, marjoram and fennel, in patio pots or in your garden, and you’ll have
fresh herbs for cooking, and the flowers produced by the herbs provide food for bumblebees.
Some shrubs have attractive flowers for bumblebees too, including Buddleia, honeysuckle,
Solitary bee bramble and Cotoneaster. Choose herbaceous plants such as lupins, foxgloves, lavender,
teasel and aquilegia, all with flowers attractive to bumblebees. If you can bear it, allow the
clover in your lawn to flower and enjoy the crowds of bumblebees buzzing around! Finally give
the queen bumblebees a helping hand in spring by providing bumblebee nest boxes in your
garden, available from a number of suppliers. It’s also possible to make simple bumblebee
nesting boxes. There are about 26 different species of bumblebee in the UK. If you’re
interested in identifying bumblebees there are good guides available – see open2.net
Summer
Activity: Bowl of water

April - June Insects are particularly successful animals, and have colonised practically every habitat. It’s
not surprising therefore that there are many species which live, for at least part of their life
cycle, in water. If you have a garden pond, you should be able to find a wide variety of small
animals. Otherwise, you can place a largish bowl of water in the garden, and see what appears.
It may take a while for animals to appear. Insects have the advantage over other aquatic
invertebrates that the adult forms are often winged, which aids their dispersal to new ponds
(such as your bowl of water).
You might expect to see the following:
Pond Skater
Mosquito eggs and larvae: Many mosquito species lay eggs in rafts which float on the water
surface. When they hatch, the larvae hang from the water surface by their breathing tubes.
You can see them swim to the bottom when startled - they eventually return to the surface.
Mosquito larvae are usually filter feeders, feeding on small particles and bacteria in the water.
Other fly larvae: Several kinds of fly breed in water. Various midges have larvae that wriggle
at or near the bottom of the water - these may resemble small fine worms. Some hover-flies
breed in stagnant water: their larvae are like maggots with a long breathing tube, known as
Fly Lava
rat-tailed maggots.
Pond skaters: These insects walk on the water surface - their legs are adapted so they don’t
break the surface tension of the water. They hunt other animals just under the surface. Pond
skaters can fly, which is how they can move between ponds. Go to open2.net
to find out more about these insects you may have found.

Activity: Insects in trees

June - September Many varied insects are found in tree canopies, such as apple, lime and oak and also in bushes
such as bramble and hazel. Try looking for and observing insects and snails in bushes or
hedges. You may find scorpion flies, hoverflies, leaf beetles, ladybirds, lacewings, alder flies,
bush crickets, moths, capsid bugs and caterpillars to name but a few. For finding insects
in trees, use a simple version of the professional entomologist’s ‘beating tray’- shake the
branches of a large bush or the lower branches of a small tree, or hit branches sharply with a
stick, and catch the caterpillars, beetles and spiders as they drop down into an upturned open
umbrella on the ground. Beware of wasps or bees when shaking branches or hitting them,
Hawthorn Shield Bug especially in late summer. Compare what you find from a deciduous tree or bush, with what
comes out of a conifer such as Cupressus leylandii or sitka spruce. If you wish to identify what
you find, use a guide to insects. If you have a digital camera, photograph the tricky ones for
identification later so that they can be set free again as soon as possible.
Go to open2.net where you’ll find out a bit more about the insects found in the trees or in
your garden & take part in our snail survey!

Common Garden Snail

Summer
Event: Flying Ants

June - September All ants are social and live in large colonies. For most of the year the wingless workers scurry
about looking for food. However, at certain times of the year, late summer and early autumn,
winged ants appear out of the nest. These are reproductive males and females. Often many
colonies will produce winged ants at the same time. They fly up and mate in the air. The males
die soon after but the females shed their wings and search for a nest site. Some will join an
existing colony but many begin their own in a hole in the ground.

Ant pupae

Activity: Bowl of water

April - June Adult dragonflies are beautiful insects, on the wing from spring to autumn. They have an
aquatic ‘nymph’ stage in their life cycle and the nymphs are voracious predators of pond
animals. Local wildlife trusts often provide pond or river dipping activities and dragonfly
nymphs are prominent in the catches. A guide to pond life helps in identifying the nymphs,
which should be returned to their pond as soon as possible. When dragonfly nymphs are full
grown, they crawl out of the water, clinging to the stem of a water plant and moult.
A newly emerged dragonfly basks in the sun while drying and pumping air and fluid into its
wings to spread them. Look for and collect moulted cases of dragonfly nymphs on water
Brown Hawker plant stems – they resemble the monster from the film ‘Alien’.
Dragonfly Go to open2.net to find out more about the physics of flying!
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