30 Days Wild - day 18

Today we went rock pooling, it was a lovely day apart from being a little chilly but many different types of shore creatures were found including some mystery items photographed at the bottom of this page.

We arrived first thing this morning just as the tide had started to recede and expose the many rock pools.

We spotted many kinds of crab, from the very small red crabs to the slightly larger see through ones.

Also one or two very large green ones that no one wanted to pick up for fear of nipping.

We also found some small hermit crabs in all different kinds of shells.

One of the hermit crabs was having a bit of a crisis with it's shell, it appeared to have a shell which was a little too large and it kept coming right out of this shell and trying to steal one of the other crabs shells.

We were a little worried about leaving it in the rock pool in a shell less state as it would be vulnerable so we hunted around and found lots of empty shells and left them in it's rock pool...just in case it liked one of these better.

The rock pools were full of prawns, some quite large and a few fish like the one below, out of the water for a second for a photo.

There were literally hundreds of winkles, this one is near a sea anemone.

Now to the mystery objects... we found a couple of jelly like objects, one was white about six inches long with what looked like white eggs inside. The other was like a mass of jelly elongate blobs or tentacle shaped things. We don't know what these are for sure so if you have an idea please let us know. Please see photo below.

30 Days Wild - day 17

The moment we've all been waiting for has finally arrived, the cinnabar moth eggs have been hatching all day! We have watched for most of the day, it has been extremely exciting.

At first there were just one or two tiny caterpillars just a few millimetres long. If you click on the photographs to enlarge them you can see the empty egg cases looking like little bubbles and to the left of the hatched caterpillar another one eating it's way out of the case.

Then there were a few more, yellow when they first emerged and covered in tiny hairs. No sign of the familiar orange and black stripes yet.

The children have been so excited to be able to witness this first hand, you can see the caterpillars have started to eat the ragwort as they are filling up with a green colour.

Not many left now, this photograph was taken at around six a few hours after the first ones emerged. You can see that some of the caterpillars have eaten a lot and are mostly green, others which have just hatched are still yellow.

I wonder how long it takes for them to get their stripes... I guess we'll just have to keep watching.

30 Days Wild - day 16

It's been a very exciting day, much watching and much anticipating, the cinnabar moth eggs have been changing colour all afternoon. If you have been following I posted a photograph yesterday of the eggs and they were all yellow. We were hoping to see them hatch but the light is starting to go and I expect they will all be hatched by morning.

This first photograph was taken about three in the afternoon, some of them appear to be darkening. The next photograph was taken at about six in the evening, you can definitely see a difference.

If you look carefully it looks like a tiny hole is appearing in one of the eggs in the centre of the shot, where a little caterpillar is eating it's way out.

I will keep you updated as we know more and try to get some photographs of the newly hatched caterpillars.

30 Days Wild - day 15

We are half way through our wild challenge and it has been a very exciting adventure. We have been waiting for our cinnabar moth caterpillars to hatch and I think it's going to be any day now as this close up photograph shows something visible inside the eggs.

We noticed a lot of ants farming aphids in the wild flower garden, in fact they seem to be all over the plants.

Bees are everywhere, each bee seems to have favourite flowers. This one likes the foxgloves, long hairs can be seen inside the flower like a tickle chamber.

Finally I'll leave you with our friend from yesterday eating his dinner again.

30 Days Wild - day 14

It has been a grey and windy day today so we have spent our wild time watching different types of spiders hunting.

This garden spider was sitting still eating an ant for quite some time in it's web, beautifully coloured. Excuse the blurry photos but it was quite windy.

The web was right across the flower garden so we were able to get all around the spider for some really good views.

This crab spider was hunting on the oxeye daisies using camouflage, these spiders can change colour to blend in with the flower they are hunting on, usually a shade of white or yellow... Fascinating.

30 Days Wild - day 13

It's elderflower time again, on one of our recent adventures we took the time to collect a few flowers to make elderflower cordial. We absolutely love this drink it evokes memories of summer and tastes amazing.

If you would like to make some Elderflower cordial yourself I have added this link with the recipe we have used.

I enjoyed a glass of this wild flower juice on the back doorstep enjoying the smell of the rain and listening to the birds singing whilst they sheltered in the trees. A wonderful wild taste that will forever remind us of summer... even in the rain!

30 Days Wild - day 12

After yesterdays big pond dipping adventure today is a much quieter woodland walk and a spot of hill rolling.

This wood is on the site of some old chalk mines and there is usually a lot of chalk on the ground, we collected a couple of pieces to do some patio drawings and for a science experiment examining the effects of acid rain.

We saw many twisty trees and some which had been cut down and left to decay creating lots of natural habitats for insects and decomposers. Many Alfred's cakes fungi were growing all over the trees.

 Hill rolling was fun, although you did have to avoid the rabbit holes and droppings.