30 Days Wild in June : Day 8

A very busy day today, so here is a photo of a beautiful wildflower meadow near to where we live:

30 Days Wild in June : Day 5 Birds & Butterflies

We had a very successful day at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum spotting various different types of wildlife.

Here are some photos of what we found:

Painted Lady Butterfly

Brimstone Butterfly

Coot chick

Adult Coot

Pair of Mallard Drakes

3 Mallards - 2 Drakes and 1 Duck

Female Chaffinch

2 Cock Pheasants (very well camouflaged)

?Round Mouthed Snail

30 Days Wild in June : Day 7 Beach

Today has been very busy, with December and June attending another birthday party.

Fortunately this one fitted in with the 30 Days Wild intention, as it was at a beach.

All the children paddled and swam (it was freezing!) and then, once cuddled up in warm clothes, enjoyed eating fresh fruit and birthday cake :)

30 Days Wild in June : Day 6 Space

We had a very busy day today as December and June attended a friends birthday party.

However, I did manage one activity outside - watching the International Space Station pass overhead from about 9.50pm for a few minutes.

It was magical watching it move swiftly across the sky, which was still light. As I gazed up I realised that I could see stars appearing in the wake of the ISS and then cloud cover moved in, which prevented me from going inside to get my telescope! Oh well, hopefully we will have a clear night tomorrow.

30 Days Wild in June : Day 4 Cuckoo Spit

Today has been absolutely beautiful with warm sunshine and clear skies. We have been watching the bees visit all the different flowers in our garden, they seem to especially like the rose pictured above.

We discovered some cuckoo spit on another rose bush. December and June thought it was really disgusting, until I explained that cuckoo spit is actually made by a small bug called a froghopper, also known as a spittlebug, when it is young to protect itself from predators, such as birds. They make the foam by excreting the sap of the plant they are feeding on and mixing it with air to create the bubbles.

I believe it has got the name of cuckoo spit because the bugs and their foam usually appear on shrubs and bushes around the same time of year as cuckoos return from their migration to Africa.

30 Days Wild in June : Day 3 Potatoes

Last night was unexpectedly wonderful for Full Moon gazing - the clouds cleared but later crept back to wreathe her in ethereal wisps and then covered the Moon's face altogether.

Today was completely different from yesterday - calm, bright and sunny. So this afternoon we tackled a gardening task that should have been carried out about 2 months ago. We (well December, June and their Daddy) planted out some seed potatoes that have been chitting for a while (since April sometime, I think).

It will be interesting to see how well they do (I'm not expecting much, which is a good way not to be disappointed!).

We also enjoyed listening to the birdsong we could hear and saw a large Thrush (I believe) singing it's heart out at the top of the Willow tree at the end of our garden.

Sorry that it isn't a terribly clear photograph, I have to use the camera on my mobile phone as I don't have a camera at present.

We also started discussing our big project, which will be a bug hotel.

30 Days Wild in June : Day 2 Marvellous Millipede

After a wild night, today dawned very wet and blustery with bits of tree all over the road and intermittent power cuts, so our hopes of being able to do much 'in the wild' were low.

However, I had forgotten that we were going out this morning for our Nature Detectives group.

December and June really enjoyed drawing elderflowers and buttercups, using magnifying glasses to help them take note of the finer details.

Then they had an indoor mini-beast exploration, with various tubs with greenery and bark that had been brought in from the woods, to see what they could find. There were young woodlice, adult woodlice, greenfly, ants, a caterpillar and most exciting of all, a millipede :)