Our garden faces the wrong way, so it doesn't get much sunshine during the day. The area that gets the most and longest sunlight is the decking and vegetable bed, which is fortunate for everything trying to grow there. The lawn, however, spends much of its time in shade. Brilliant for preventing sunburn, but not great for basking. First thing in the morning though, it can quite glorious out there. This morning, we made the most of that sunshine by going out straight after breakfast.
We didn't have any specific wild plans, so we just had a little hunt around for anything interesting. B found some snail trails, which we followed, but the secretive snails were nowhere to be found. Just so long as they keep away from my lettuces! We saw the bees that disappear into a hole in the soil by our solitary garlic plant, but they're too speedy for me to get a photo. And M spotted a couple of woodlice. B was nervous of them, referring to them as, "black, slimy creatures!" One of them was on his back, struggling to right himself, so I gave him a hand. The girls were amazed to see him roll up into a ball, and it prompted a discussion about how animals can protect themselves from danger.
The woodlice made me remember an experiment from school, where we had a box divided into quarters - light & dry, light & damp, dark & dry, dark & damp - into which we placed a few woodlice to see which environment they would end up in. As far I can remember, they ended up in the dark & damp quarter because moisture makes their legs move more slowly. I hope that's true and I haven't made myself look like a fool! I must remember this experiment though, as it would be great to redo with the girls in the future.
Next week, we're going to try to make a bug hotel, so that we can see what other creepy crawlies inhabit our garden.
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