Putting the bounce into spring.

Up date on the Giant Floridan Katydids, Stilpnochlora couloniana ( please scroll down the blog for the previous 'Banishing the winter blues' post ). The eggs are hatching and the nymphs are quite literally pinging all over the place! Stunning little invertebrates with incredibly long antenna and beautifully marked legs. Great to see them after such a long wait. Brilliant!

The hatching nymphs squeeze out of their egg cases.

Legs that are designed to put in a sizable jump. Great for escaping potential predators.

Irresistible invertebrates....

Just had the genuine pleasure to spend some great time in the rather fun company of food fanatic Stefan Gates. The man that is BBC1 CBBC's Gastronaut. He is on a mission to put invertebrates on the menu. We in the western world find the concept of eating insects ( Entomophagy ) unusual and even disturbing, however 80% of the worlds nations eat invertebrates as a major source of protein. Beetle grubs, caterpillars, crickets and ants are just a few of the delicacies on offer. There is an environmental reason too, in light of our predicted fresh water shortage, 150g of grasshopper meat requires a nominal amount of water to produce. It takes 3290 litres of fresh water to produce the same amount of beef. Our very existence depends on many factors but one important one is invertebrates. They pollinate, decompose matter, increase soil fertility and provide a direct food source. Forget I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and think more along the lines of a sustainable future where every option has to be considered. Personally, the Thai Curried Crickets were delicious!

Gastronaut Stefan Gates.

Cooking with a fire extinguisher. At least it will not burn!

SPRING HAS SPRUNG!!

Great, fabulous and fantastic! Grab those sweep nets and get out there! The day time and night time temperatures are creeping up and our wonderful British invertebrates are starting to stir. I get so excited this time of the year! We have baby animals appearing on the farm with a beautiful new red Dexter calf and lots of healthy Wiltshire Horn lambs. It is an absolute joy to see them leaping around in gangs, just simply exuberant in the rays of the warm sun. The clocks are going forward and British Summer Time is on the agenda. I even smelt the wafts of a distant barbecue this afternoon. Something is happening down in the pond too. The water is rippled with the thrashings of Common Toads Bufo bufo trying to mate. The males cluster around the female, pushing off their rivals with their hind legs in an effort to guard her while she spawns. Toad spawn ( the eggs) are laid in strings entwined around water plants and can be up to 10 meters long. These gorgeous chaps can not start to get active until the warmth has bought out the many invertebrates that they need to feed on. All their croaking is the perfect heralding of spring!

Male Common Toads beginning to fight over a female.

Common frog Rana temporaria spawn. Remember, frog
spawn is in clumps and toad spawn is in strings.

There is always one. Tracey the pet lamb, perfectly at home, in her not so natural environment of our kitchen!

Science Week Success!

Bring Science Week alive with living things when the Minibeast Mayhem Roadshow visits your school! Loads to do as far as invertebrates are concerned for the 2012 Science Week. Fantastic interaction for KS1 and KS2 with loads of science activities and curriculum links. It is just brilliant to enthuse the children with a hands on experience and they learn an incredible amount this way. Minibeasts is such a huge topic and covers many subjects such as Art, Design and Technology, ICT, English Literature and Language, Mathematics and Science. You can look into habitats, life cycles, classification, anatomy, adaptations, food chains and webs. The list just goes on and on! Ugly Bug Balls have become a popular way to end the week with Dragonfly Discos and Ladybird Line Dances. It is all about learning and one of the best ways to guarantee that is with excitement, fun and great experiences. If you are looking for extra resources, the British Science Association http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/web/nsew/GetInvolved/NSEWActivities/_ActivityPacks/SaveOurBees.htm  is good and has a rather vital educational link with so many of our native bees now in a decline. Rowse Honey has also come up with various Bee based teaching resources at http://www.beeschool.co.uk .If you want a minibreast resource embracing more invertebrates, the National STEM Centre have a very useful discovery pack  http://www.nationalstemcentre.org.uk/elibrary/resource/2189/minibeast-discovery-pack .What ever you choose to do, make Science Week a success for you and your class!

Look at this awesome Leaf Insect, Phyllium giganteum. You can talk about adaptations, camouflage, habitats and so much more whilst she stands on your children's hands. Nothing captures their interests so well as a hands on big bug experience. Bring learning alive!

In focus.

A slightly surreal day today.  Some of the invertebrates took to the limelight as models for a macro photographic shoot. They were unfazed by the whole experience which pleased me as I was not entirely sure how they would cope with the bright flashes from multiple lights. Another worry was the heat from lamps being dangerous or encouraging flight, but this was all unfounded.  It was so impressive to see the invertebrates photographed under the knowledgeable tuition of professional photographer John Holdship. Just listening in taught me so much more about depth of field and macro lenses. The very best part of all though was seeing some of the rushes.Wow! The detail was incredible! Amazing to look at the subtle colours which are hard to spot with the naked eye; the joints in legs, veins in wings, spiracles (breathing holes along the abdomen) and so much more. Wonderful to actually get that close to them and explore them in such detail without using a microscope. We were all chuffed with the results! www.openspacephotography.com

General Grievous, a Dead Leaf Mantis Deroplatys desiccata working his moment.

Jack, a male Jungle Nymph Heteropteryx dilatata striking a pose.

Super Science!

How It Works is an amazing science magazine that embraces all areas of science with really awesome eye catching diagrams and photographs. An ideal magazine for the school library, KS2 and upwards, as well as being a great read with your family at home. This month they are running an article on deadly venom and have investigated invertebrates alongside vertebrates. A great resource with fun and fabulous coverage of all that is scientific. Get reading! http://www.howitworksdaily.com/
If you fancy more hands on science there is the Big Bang Fair being held at the NEC in Birmingham from 15th to 17th March. A truly incredible day out (15th - 16th are for school groups only, families on the 17th), hands on experiences with a huge range of activities and the chance to chat with some of the UKs leading scientific talent. Be inspired! www.thebigbangfair.co.uk/home.cfm
National Science & Engineering Week is 9th to 18th of March 2012. Spear headed by the British Science Association, this is a nation wide science event encouraging schools and the home schooling community to take part in practical science activities to challenge and enthuse children. Great opportunity to explore science with your class or child. Log in to find events or upload your own. Get practical! http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/web/NSEW/index.htm

How it Works Magazine -making science fun!

 

Empathy.

I have just received a rather lovely email from a friend who inquired about our family and our 'zoo'.  Gerald Durrell's wonderful book title 'My family and other animals' came to mind. As a child I was constantly pestering to be taken to zoos and museums, our local zoo being Banham Zoo www.banhamzoo.co.uk  and I would go to each individual enclosure not wanting to leave until I had read about, and seen, each occupant. I personally believe good zoos do have a place in our society. Every child I have spoken to knows what a Meerkat is and will happily launch into 'Compare zee market dot com, compare zee Meerkat dot com. Simples'. The amazing power of media and catchy lines! However they do now know what a Meerkat actually is and besides extremely valuable breeding programs, zoos provide education, research and a living reference for all of us. If we do not see first hand a creature that our actions might be detrimentally affecting in the wild elsewhere in the world, how do we feel any passion for it or a need to change our actions? Zoos give us the opportunity to experience the creatures we share this planet with and to hopefully enable us to feel an empathy with them. When I go into a school or am part of an event, I am a Keeper as far as the children are concerned and I let them walk through the bars to experience the occupants first hand. It is the minute detail they pick on; the exoskeleton that rises like thorns on a thorax or the breathing hole of a snail. They experience a wonder and hopefully they take this away with them. Perhaps they will think twice about dropping litter or throwing stones at the ducks in the park. Perhaps they will just have a little more respect for what is around them and in the world they live in. Sometimes it is the child's view that can change the parents. I know lots of adults who have over come their tobacco addiction only because of their children's pestering. Now it is getting warmer, get out and go to your local zoo or wildlife park. Take the family and read those information signs, read them to those that can't. Stay long enough to see the occupant before you move on and point it out to everyone in your group. Look at what it is doing, its colour, its shape, how it moves and what it eats. Use the experience for what it is - a unique opportunity to actually see some of the incredible creatures you share your world with and in turn share that with your family. Make it a great day out!


 We hope that there will be fireflies and glow-worms at night to guide you and butterflies in hedges and forests to greet you.
 We hope that there will still be the extraordinary varieties of creatures sharing the land of the planet with you to enchant you and enrich your lives as they have done for us.
 We hope that you will be grateful for having been born into such a magical world.
                                                                                                                Written in 1988 by Gerald Durrell
                                                                                                                                                www.durrell.org



 
                                                                                                                 

Saddle up!

The satisfaction of seeing a complete life cycle is immense! Back in the archived blogs I mention beetles and their grubs - now we have cocoons and shiny new beetles. The Saddle Beetles, Pachnoda marginata peregrina are the first to emerge. A really fantastic little African fruit beetle with striking brown and yellow markings on its elytra (wing cases). They are very active, feeding and mating with the occasional noisy flights up to the top. Great to see them and in huge numbers too - flushed with success!

Beautifully crafted cocoon made from droppings and substrate, wrapped around the beetle pupa.

Newly emerged beetles are very hungry!

Spring in the air.....

What a beautiful day! I have been out on a bug hunt with a fantastic group of energetic children. When I left home this morning in a pea souper of dense fog, I must admit I was thinking we are being far too optimistic, especially this early in the year. I was wrong. The sun burnt its way through, the temperature went up, the birds started to sing and the air filled with the undeniable sound of buzzing. The children were absolutely ecstatic at being outside and they really pulled out all the stops! Great fun was had by all, but the clear favorites of the day were the Seven-Spot Ladybirds, Coccinella septempunctata. A brilliant ladybird out of its over wintering to make the most of a fine day. It has a hard elytra (wing case) in an iconic bright red colour with six black spots and the seventh spread over the elytra junction. It is a native species and one that really captures the children imagination- we even sung the rhyme all the way back to class! For those of you who are on a slightly higher academic level, when we give a newly identified species  its latin name, the idea is to tell you a little about the creature itself. In this case septem means 'seven' and punctus means 'spot'. People often ask me why do we use latin at all. The reason is because its universal. Wherever you are in the world and whatever language you speak, the latin name always remains the same, regardless of what the local common name may be. That way we all know what we are talking about!

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home.......

Hazel Catkins full of pollen  - look out for the first bumble bees feeding on the Pussy Willows as they start to flower.