30 Days Wild - day 11

Today we went pond dipping at our local marsh, this is one of the children's favourite activities and it was a beautiful day for a wild adventure.

The pond was teeming with life and damselflies and dragonflies were everywhere. We kept hearing little splashes at the water bank but were never fast enough to see what was making the noise.

We saw quite a lot of fish but didn't catch any, but we did catch a few tadpoles that were just starting to grow their legs.

Many snails, bivalves, cased caddis fly larva and water boatmen.

We even managed to scoop out a few very large leeches.

Growing all along the side of the banks were beautiful wildflowers, many yellow irises and ragged robin.

The children managed to see a slow worm, it moved into the undergrowth too fast for me to get a photograph but it was a very exciting moment for them. The otters didn't put in an appearance today but we did manage to see a heron.

Pond dipping is always a good choice of wild adventure for children such a lot to see and experience.

Pond Dipping

 

   This year we went pond dipping twice, the children love spending time with nature and we have spent a lot of time exploring this as a part of our everyday life this year. The possibilities for learning are endless and so is the fun. We went pond dipping in the Spring and again in the Summer, this post is a little late as we were going to go again in the Autumn, to record any seasonal changes, but time just seems to be flying by and the weather has been really bad. As you can see above my daughter caught herself in the net, by the look of the big smiles this was also fun!

   We chose a spot within walking distance of where we live, which just happens to be a country park, nature reserve and educational centre. This little bridge seemed the perfect spot, so we used the same place for both trips. Don't worry no creatures were harmed and all were returned safely to the place they were found. well, apart from the tiny red worm... which got eaten by the demoiselle larva... but that's just part of a natural life cycle.

spring

   Above are a sample of the water creatures we caught on our Spring pond dip. we didn't catch as much in spring but I have put on a photograph of some of the bigger things, a demoiselle and a true damselfly larva.

summer

    As you can see the summer pond dip caught many more water creatures than the spring one. Still the same sorts of things just many more of them. More larva and definitely more snails. On the summer excursion we also noticed that there were many empty skins of the larva on the bridge, where they had left the water, shed their skins and flew off.

    My son has really been enjoying all the time we have spent in nature this year, it is one of his biggest interests, so we intend to continue with more time spent exploring nature and the natural world around us. He has picked up so much this year, as it is a subject he loves so much, not just about the creatures and their life cycles but also food chains / webs, evolution, environmental science and habitat conservation, plus so much more in between. We intend to start a nature journal in the new year, to record as many things as possible from our area as they change throughout the year. A record to keep forever.