Woodland Detectives
Often in woodlands it is easier to find evidence that animals are present rather than find the animals themselves. Often you will hear an animal, like a squirrel, before you see it, just as the animals will hear or sense you before they see you.
This activity encourages looking and listening to discover what is there.
OBJECTIVE: to understand the different woodland types and how they support a variety of creatures.
TIME: 1 - 1.5 hours
WHAT YOU WILL NEED: magnifying glasses, plastic collecting bags for evidence, activity sheets.
The Activity
Find a place in the woodlands and ask everyone to stand in a circle facing outwards. With their eyes closed, what can they hear? Listen to the sounds and the stillness of the natural world.
Explain that the Reserve Manager is trying to find out who lives in the woodland. He would like to know who is resident in the woodland and who is a visiting migrant. To find this out he needs some good detectives.
Divide into groups for each type of woodland you can see, for example native woodland, newly planted broadleaved trees or established conifer plantation. Think about these questions:
How do you know someone is around?
Will noises or smells give away any animals?
Do they leave anything behind?
Do different animals live in different layers of the woodland?
What time of day is it and what is the wather like? Do you think this will make a difference to the sounds you hear?
How will you remember your clues?
Use the recording sheets, Looking for Clues. The groups need to investigate their areas to find evidence. When they have finished, gather everyone into a circle to report their findings and produce what evidence they have. Discuss similarities and differences.
What sort of clues should you look for?
Sounds: birdsong - laughing call of the green woodpecker (also called the yaffler, you'll know if it you hear it) drumming of a great spotted woodpecker; cat mewing of a buzzard; squeaks of voles and mice.
Smells: musky smell of a male fox.
Things you might find:
Droppings - fox, rabbits, roe deer, hare, maybe fox or pine marten.
Holes - if they're in leaves they are made by caterpillars, if they are in dead wood or bark then wood-boring beetle larvae may have made them.
Galls are wart-like growths on leaves (sometimes woody and beautifully round) - they are made by insects, especially wasp species, where they have laid their eggs.
Webs - spiders. But if leaves have been eaten and the tree is covered in webs then it might be moth larvae.
Tunnels - through grass are small mammals, voles ormice. If they are into the soil, especially on the slope then it is probably rabbits. Big holes might be made by foxes or badgers
Cuckoo spit - leafhoppers lay their eggs and cover them with spit to protect them and their young larvae.
Chewed cones - squirrels leave a core with tatty ends, hares leave neat ends.
Molehills - might be quite difficult to see in woodland under the leaves and undergrowth. But moles will be busy here if the soil isn't too wet.
Footprints - look for deer slots in soft ground.
Feathers - if there are lots it might be from a dead bird, maybe killed by a bird of prey. Hair - might get caught in tangles. See how soft it is and look at the colour, is it from rabbits or deer?
Nests - see how they're made, neat and lined with moss or a mess of twigs. Who made it?
Pellets - of fur and small bones, the indigestible bits thrown up by a bird of prey after a meal.
Nibbled or stripped woody stems - deer, rabbits or hares all eat soft bark. If there are lots of these animals in a wood then small trees might be killed by this bark stripping.
Fungi - bracket fungi grow on tree trunks and dead wood, they are often hard and woody. Toadstools grow on the ground and come in all sizes, shapes and colour. They are most common in the autumn and like damp weather. Take a note of the trees in the area where they are growing.
Slugs and snails - are easy to spot in wet weather. Snails need to get minerals from the soil to make their shells, but slugs don't. If you only see slugs then the soil might not have the right minerals for snails.
Suggested follow-up
Take a look at your Looking for Clues records and try and work out which animals were in the woodland. See if you can find out more about them and complete an Ideal Homes Activity Sheet.
Make a wall display of all the signs and creatures that caused them. Make a list of all the evidence you collected and send it to the Reserve Manager for their records. Come back at a different time of year and see if you find the same things. Create a database for the different seasons and the different clues and creatures found through the year.
Downloads
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