Brickfield Nature Reserve bug hunt

Helped out again at the Friends of Brickfield Nature Reserve fun day event in conjunction with the Lewes Ranger Thyone.

Sadly extreme windy weather meant we had to abandon putting up the marquee which meant we were unable to use the usb cams to project collected invertebrates onto a tv screen.

Even with the poor weather lots of people turned up for the event.

We also collected some creatures from the onsite pond which included mayfly nymph, damselfly nymph, water boatman, juvenile newts etc.

We shared lots of interesting facts about the animals, such as how water boatman have an air bubble for breathing underwater and that they can fly to another pond.

The newt tadpoles were popular and we discussed their gills, how they develop front legs first, that they hunt small prey items such as daphnia and how adult news lay eggs singularly under leaves of pond vegetation.

The main part of the event was the bug hunt. We handed out pots and containers for people to collect creatures and bring them back to be identified and learn something about the animal they had found.

These included bumble bees, woodlouse, 24 and 7 spot ladybird, speckled wood butterflies, spiders, ground beetle, frog hopper, garden snail and much more.

We also found Kentish snails, a black snail beetle, a digger wasp, a nursery web spider, common blue butterflies, cone head grasshopper, red soldier beetle, thick knee flower beetle, common carder bees and yellow field ants.

Despite the weather the day was a great success.