Local Wildlife

This is rather strange and Mr Jones hadn't even heard of it........Do you know what it is?

A purple hairstreak butterfly was caught near the Butterfly Garden. It was almost dead and had a large tic attached to its body. This is quite a rare butterfly...

Young palmate newts look like tadpoles but there are differences!

We have lots of wildlife at our school. Check out our blue tit box!

	Another strange and hairy caterpillar.... Congratulations to Catlin again. It was Catlin who caught the Vapourer moth caterpillar in July. This one is very similar. The challenge is who will be the first to find its name? It is called a Pale Tussock.
		This is the Vapourer Moth caterpillar that was found in July

To see what we have caught in the school moth trap click on the moth.........

Vapourer Moth Caterpillar

Dosbarth Mostyn Challenge.

	The male moth can grow up to 30—40 mm.
	All females are wingless.
	The adults normally come out in June and stays out until October.
	With 2—3 regions, the male flies by day and seeks out females which never venture far from the surface of the cocoon .
	The eggs are usually laid on the cocoon.
	The caterpillar can reach up to 40 mm.
	It feeds on a wide range of deciduous trees and shrubs from April to September.

By Caitlin

Caterpillar in fancy dress or the caterpillar of a Vapourer Moth

RSPB Conwy

To find out about the habitats that the children studied you will need to read their work on a different page on the site. Please click here

	habitat 1 bird watching from the hide at the lagoon
	habitat 2: estuary
	habitat 3: pond dipping
	habitat 4: grassland bugs

What's that bird?


Checking the contents of the nets	Carnivorous dragonfly nymph

Caterpillar in fancy dress or the caterpillar of a Vapourer Moth. See Catlin's research above

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June

Speckled Bush-Cricket

The Speckled Bush-Cricket is found through out Europe in July, August,September and October. The Speckled Bush-Cricket is camouflaged like a leaf, it prefers a bush habitat, such as brambles and nettles. The body length of a Speckled Bush-Cricket is 10-17 mm. The males are often larger than the females...

17th May

We went to the RSPB reserve, Conwy to do some pond dipping. We found some water mites, leeches, beetle larvae, water beetles, stickle backs, whirligig beetles, snail eggs, damsel fly nymphs and dragonfly nymphs. We could tell the damselfly and the dragonfly nymphs apart as the damselfly had a more streamline body than the dragonfly nymph.

On the 8th of May we went to the RSPB center in Conwy, we saw: oystercatchers, a great black backed gull, a great crested grebe, shovelers, ruddy ducks, grey heron, mute swans, canada geese, lap- wings, sky larks the lapwings were flying all over the place. It was a spectacular sight. The canada geese and the mute swans all had chicks.

By Steven

4th May

Wasp beetle found in the Formal Garden.

It is called a wasp beetle because of its colours and it looks like a wasp. The wasp beetle is harmless and is common in Britain and most of Europe. It is found May to July and feeds on pollen and nectar.

29th March.

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About 30 newts were caught today in the pond. Some of them had a little red colour on their bellys. We also caught:

	about 6 stickleback fish
	a leech that sucks your blood.
	ramshorn snails
	lots of ordinary pond snails
	lots of freshwater hoglice which look like woodlice
	a red worm.

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Female newt

The newts are very numerous in the pond. As we cleared the leaves from the bottom of the pond we caught about 40. We put the leaves at the side of the pond so the creatures could crawl back into the water. The spear shaped iris leaves are now emerging and the marsh marigoldsare in flower and look like large buttercups. The newts measure about....................................................... The newt has a sharp thread-like point at the end of its tail. The females have webbed back feet while the males don't.

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19th March

A squirrel kept going into our bin and eating the left overs.

8th March

Below is a list of birds we saw on our visit in the RSPB reserve in Conwy today.

Shellduck, Herring Gull, Little Grebe, Coot, Potchard, Ruddy Duck, Canada Goose, Wigeon, Mute swan, Grey Heron, Tufted Duck, Red Breasted Mreganser, Goldeneye, Sky Lark, Magpie and a Lapwing.

The ruddy duck was relly beautiful and had a light blue bill.

3rd March

A toad was rescued outside the school and put in the pond inthe Insect Garden. We could tell that it was a toad because it had warts all over its back. Toads generally prefer to crawl whereas frogs tend to hop.

	Martin Mere in Lancashire.
Martin Mere is a Wildfowl and Wetlands trust sanctuary. It is a very important habitat for all kinds of wildlife. It is approximately 370 acres of wetlands, containing amazing wildlife. In the winter at Martin Mere, you would see around 28,000 geese accompanied by thousands of swans and ducks, which have flown all the way from their original countries to escape the rough winter weathers. The Bewik swan, Britain’s smallest swan flies to Britain to escape the Russian winter, and can fly up to 1000 miles in one go.Amazingly, one visit to Martin Mere, is the same as a trip around the world. A whole range of birds from every part of the world.A mute swan is resident to this country, not like the Whoopper swan. This kind of swan is migratory. It flies to Britain every Winter to escape Arctic weather.20 years ago, no birds visited Martin Mere. Now at least 1100 birds visit the sanctuary every Winter. Large colonies of Flamingo crowd the swamp marshes.Flamingo babies are grey, for protection. Flamingo’s are pink, simply because of the food they eat, for example — prawns.You are probably used to seeing them standing on only one leg. The real reason is, that to enable them to keep their legs warm they lift their legs up off the ground or out of the water. When you see a Flamingo , what seems to be the knee joint ,half way down the flamingo’s leg, is actually the ankle.These birds come all the way from chilly.

Did you know that a flamingo chick's legs grow 5mm each day during the first 20 - 30 days!

Martin Mere they have a breeding programme for rare and endangered birds.The marbled Teal is also endangered. The eggs are collected and placed under special hens as they are better parents.Another bird that is endangered in the Hawaian Goose. In 1951 there were only 30 of these geese and they were close to extinction. Now there are 500 birds and although they are still endangered their future looks more secured.

Click here to visit the Martin Mere web-site

by Eva

17th Febuary, 2000 Frog spawn in the pond in the Butterfly Garden.Earlier than last year and by the look of the frog spawn it was laid last week. We can see the tadpoles developing inside the jelly.

R.S.P.B. Conwy Reserve

by Sam

On Friday, 9^th February members of the Urdd visited the local R.S.P.B reserve in Conwy . Unfortunately the new binoculars the school had ordered had not arrived.

The first bird we saw were Mute Swans. The Mute Swan is a resident bird. This means it is here all through the year. We are planning a school trip to Martin Mere where we should see more than a thousand Whooper Swans. These Swan fly about 2500 miles to escape the Arctic winter to spend winter here in Britain. We saw several Coots. These are black birds with white shields on their foreheads – they look as if they are wearing helmets. Coots have lobbed feet, which help them when they are walking on soft mud. Instead of having webbed feet each toe is webbed separately. Coots have claws as sharp as cats and they use these for fighting to defend their territory during the breeding season. We also saw a few moorhen. Moorhen could easily be mistaken for coots but they have red shields on their foreheads instead of white ones. Moorhens are generally much shyer birds.

We also saw several species of wader. These birds feed on the edge of the water and have longer legs and beaks. We saw a flock of curlew who have very long curved beaks. We also saw oystercatchers and lapwings.

We didn’t see any summer migrants, but then, it is still early.

bird.gif (3519 bytes) Blue Tit Box Watch

We have an exciting new project at our school . This project is called the Blue Tit Boxwatch . The project involves placing a television in the foyer, a wire connecting the television to a camera which will be put in a bird box in the school garden. We will then be able to sit in the school foyer while at the same time watching the birds nesting. We will be carrying out a blue tit survey (provided they decide to use the nest box!) We will be trying to answer these and many other questions:

	How many eggs will be laid?
	How long does the hen sit on the eggs?
	What do the chicks eat ?
	How often will the male feed the female and what will she eat?
	When does the male feed the female?
	At what time of the day are they most active?
	Will all the chicks survive?
	How many broods will they have?

All these questions can be answered by the Boxwatch project .The Boxwatch project is a new way to study birds . A camera will be placed in a bird box so we can watch birds lay there eggs ,watch the eggs hatch and watch the chicks being fed.

The box is quite large but the camera inside is only the size of a floppy disk!The camera has a light on it so we can gradully illuminate the box in the mornings and in the night we can gradully turn it down. This shouldn’t effect the birds as a nest box is never fully dark as the sun shines through the hole in the box.The secret is to turn light up slowly otherwise the birds would get frightend away.

The electrician took two days to put the camera up and connect the wire to a t.v.

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We are very worried because if the goats get into the school garden they would eat all the plants! One of the goats stood on our shed roof!

9th March, 1999

Today we came to school and we saw some wild goats on the Graet Orme above our school. We tried to get close to them to take a photograph but they were very nervous. They had been sleeping above the school as the grass had been flattened. We took the photograph on the left.

by Scott and Kyle.

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4th March, 1999

Charlotte brought this collared dove to the school. The bird was young but was also injured. Th e R.S.P.C.A. came to collect it.

If you ever come across a young bird you should leave it where it as its parents are there somewhere waiting to feed it.

Here are dragonfly or damselfly nymphs. We are not sure which. If anyone can identify them please e-mail us?

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What have these frogs been up to? On the 24th February 1999 we found lots and lots of frog spawn.

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