B and I headed back to Staffhurst Woods to look for bugs and beetles on a minibeast hunt. He had been given a minibeast hunt set for his birthday, so we took that with us. The set had a magnifying glass, pot with airholes and a magnifying glass lid and helpful book in it, but I also printed out some of these spotting sheets from the Wildlife Trust too:-
Minibeast detective spotting sheet
Beetle detective spotting sheet
Summer woodland wildlife spotting sheet
Woodland butterfly spotting sheet
There are tons of different sheet available on the website for all different seasons and places to visit.
We first looked for fallen logs and branches, as the obvious place to find minibeasts. Under one log we found a huge beetle. Going by the beetle detective spotting sheet, this might be a bloody-nosed beetle, though I’m not sure.
We found many woodlice under leaves and branches, some tiny, flying insects and something which looked like a mini butterfly with long tentacles plus a big slug, which B wanted to take home to show his brother! 🙂 B also found some half eaten nuts. I think they were beech nut shells and also old acorns.
Unfortunately we were beaten by the rain again so headed home before we really wanted to. We’ll take the pot and spotting sheets to another place soon in June, hopefully when the weather is better, to see what else we can find.
The beetle we found under a log
B finds some tiny insects
