Bedfords park: Pond dipping and minibeast hunting, with a dash of rutting deer :)
Tuesday, 11. March 2008, 20:58:15
I spent today revising up at bedfords park. It was meant to be a quick visit but there was a school group in so I thought I'd help out as it had been a while. First up was pond dipping. The problem was the pond had flooded and the dipping platform was more of an Island! We let the kids loose with the nets and they caught freshwater shrimps (Gammarus) and some cyclops. There was then the cry of 'NEWT!' And there in the tray was a female smooth/common newt (Lissotriton (formerly Triturus) vulgaris)
I picked her up for a closer look and to show the kids
I turned her over to show the spots on the chin, which shows it is a smooth newt, rather than the palmate newt
Also fished out the pond was this:
Its the larva or maggot of a cranefly, obvious one of the species that has aquatic larva. You can tell by the maggot shpe and especially from the twin holes, called spiracles, and surrounding flanges and which poke through the waters surface with water repellent hairs to allow it to breathe.After lunch we went minibeast hunting where we found 3 millipedes
Here are close ups of two of them
After this it was time to feed the deer. There rather tame as you can see
lol
Even last years calves are becoming tamer. Won't be long until they come right up to the fence
Some posed nicely as they fed
And some of the males got a bit aggressive and even started to rut!
Ok, back to revising, thanks for all the good wishes recently
WIDGETIZE
revisionexercise!The deer look rather plump to me
By SittingFox, # 11. March 2008, 21:30:06
As for the deer, there defienately well fed
By Ukwildlife, # 11. March 2008, 22:20:45