Nature Cameras

Our first frost came two nights ago and last night looked like it would be a cold, clear night: ideal to catch foraging animals on camera. We set one camera up on the Jolly Roger and one on a chopped down tree with some birdseed and meal worms on it ...


This was filmed from the Jolly Roger: the film looks a little misty, but that might be a film of frost over the lens. It was jolly cold last night!


You can see how the lens has cleared now ... clearly see the local fauna!

Trees and Leaves

Today we went down onto the New Field and gathered leaves and sticks as we went. We were looking at all of the different colours that the leaves are at the moment as Autumn is arriving now.

Gathering Leaves and Sticks

 We then lay out the sticks and leaves on the New Field ...

Building

Nest-building

Adding the golf-ball like egg . .. (ok, the golf ball!)

Sprinkling leaves

Adding the finishing touches!

The finished picture: 'Autumn Trees' by Nature Club

Spiders and Bugs

Today we went hunting for spiders in the school grounds ... and found a lot of other interesting bugs besides.

We looked in the cracks in trees

Success ... but which sort of spider is it?

We looked under pieces of wood and logs

We used put them in our trays to get a good look.

There is a spider in there ... honest!

A serious centipede: this one runs fast and hunts in the leaf litter.
Those pincers can give a serious bite!

Comparing our catches.

Alexander the beetle ... not a spider but very cute!

Not the biggest spider in the world but some of the most interesting beasts are mini-ones!

Chase the worm ...

Very proud of our catch

Another handsome little spider

A millipede that we found in a crack in a tree.

I found a bug!

... and what a beauty!

We will be looking at UK Safari to see if we can identify these minibeasts.

Camera Traps II

This seems to be week of the squirrel!













Hiding your nuts from Brambletye on Vimeo.

Moths @ Brambletye

Last night we put out our moth trap as it was set to be a clear night, with a Super-Moon too!

Our moth trap in action at dawn

We caught a few moths but they were mainly of a couple of species.

The moths slept on the egg boxes in the trap.

They liked our jumpers too...

We took a close look at the moths...

... And then we released them.

We discussed the the differences between moths and butterflies...

Butterfly wings do this ...

Moths wings do this ...

Bonus points if anyone can find out our moth species.

We then put the trap cameras up in some new places for next week.

Camera Traps

Our camera traps have been out for a whole week and we had a look today to see if we have caught any interesting animals on film ... the tension was high in the room ...

Camera 2 caught ... one startled blackbird and a group of children setting up the camera!

Camera 1 on the other hand ... despite getting a bit wet in he monsoon like rain that we have had this week, had some successes. We chose our favourite clips to go on the blog and here they are:

Afternoon Deer from Brambletye on Vimeo.

Morning Deer from Brambletye on Vimeo.

Night Deer Silhouette from Brambletye on Vimeo.

Goodnight Mr Badger from Brambletye on Vimeo.

Research question: 

Using the link to UK Safari on this page, can we work out which species of deer it is that we have caught on camera? 

HINT: Look at the tail!

Nature Club is Back!

We have re-started Nature club this term and have nearly 20 enthusiastic members! We meet every Monday at 17:10 and we are going to investigate which types of animals live in our school grounds and find out as much as we can about them.

The skies were heavy with rain as we set off ...

On our way we found a young frog out hunting for bugs in the long grass...

... and a rather slimy slug (now called 'Phyllis').

 

We were looking for 'nature highways', the tracks that animals follow to get quickly to cover if there is a predator about.

We found a couple of likely spots and set up a couple of camera traps.

Other than catching images of our children setting the cameras, we have made a list of animals that we think we might find:

• Deer - we have seen them before and there is a lot of deer poo about ... but which species might we find?
• Badgers - there is a lot of fresh poo about (with lots of seeds in it!) but we have not seen one in the day time.
• Foxes - "because they are everywhere!"
• Rabbits - there are a lot of rabbit pellets about the place and we have all seem them on the edges of the fields during games.
• Mice - We hope to see them 'because they are cute!'

We are leaving the traps up for a whole week and will report back our findings next week!