Zooniversity and other things.

I have not blogged for a while so this is a bit of a catch up on what I have been doing lately.
My Mum runs a group for Home educated children called Butterflies HE Group and for the last session before the summer break I decided to run a session making dream catcher out of wool and willow. It was good fun !

And here is a willow spider web I made in the same way at the Festival of Leisure

I have decided that I would like to do a college course and maybe a degree in something like Countryside Management when I am old enough so I am trying to do as much voluntary work as I can so that I can learn as much as possible about jobs in that area..... I love doing this kind of work , protecting the countryside is so important and I also love the litter picking because I hate seeing litter that people have dropped all over the place although obviously it would save us the job if they didn't drop it in the first place ! I will be at either Conkers or Rosliston Forestry Centre most days during the summer holidays and will helping with things like Wildlife Watch activities, Ranger crafts, Bushcraft and also some surveying of the local wildlife. There will be lots to do and learn. I have also decided that even though I'm 13 I am going to study my biology GCSE this year so I can start getting the GCSEs that I need to get into college.

Me and my brother doing some voluntary gardening at Rosliston Forestry Centre

This is me and 2 of my brothers off on a nature walk

Our RSPB family membership pack came the other day and it's awesome ! There was a free book and welcome pack for my Mum, a wildlife file, wingbeat magazine and phoenix welcome pack for me and a wildlife file, Wild time magazine and welcome pack for my little brother. We can now access the website pages and enter competitions and have free access to the RSPB resserves !

If you would like to join and support the brilliant work that the RSPB do please follow this link :

http://www.rspb.org.uk/supporting/join/families.aspx

This is my brother looking at his wildlife file

We also recently found this magazine which is really good and full of all sorts of information. I will definately be getting this from now on :)

http://www.animalplanetmagazine.co.uk/

We went to Conkers yesterday for a couple of hours and the Rangers were doing a willow workshop so me and my Mum had a go. It was good but really hard to make the willow stay where I wanted it too. Willow weaving can be used to make natural fencing so maybe I will be doing it again in the future :)

Mmmm more practice needed I think :)

And finally......in August I am going to be going to Twycross Zoo to do a week of Zooniversity ! I really like going to the zoo and am really looking forward to it. We will be spending time with keepers seeing how they look after the different animals, seeing how they train them, looking at the work that the vet does, the conservation work that the zoo does, studying animal behaviour and enrichment for the animals and also how to do surveying and gathering info to be used in scientific studys. Soooo excited !

If anyone else would like to take part, the link to the zoo page is here :

http://www.animalplanetmagazine.co.uk/

I will try to keep updating on what I am doing over the summer but I will be busy busy   :o)  

Send me you cutest animal / wildlife pictures.

I would love to see some of your animal / wildlife pictures. You can E-mail them to me at :

bethrowbottom@aol.com

They could feature on my blog ?

Get snapping ! =]

A day at Twycross Zoo and World Primate Centre.

Last week we spent a day at Twycross Zoo. We saw loads of different animals, it was fun and a great day out !  Twycross contribute to conservation by having over 200 different species, many of which are enrolled in captive breeding programmes. They also have a Conservation Welfare Fund.  This their web page :  http://www.twycrosszoo.org/home.aspx

One of the rarest things we saw was a bird called Monserrat Oriole. Apparently these are the only ones in this country and are critically endangered !

Montserrat orioles are sexually dimorphic (the males and females look different). The males have black wings, tail and breast and their belly, rump and lower back are yellowish. The females are yellowish all along their underside and have dark green/brown wings and a green tail.

They inhabit a small region on the island of Montserrat in the West Indies. These birds live in the forested areas of the island, but much of their habitat was destroyed by volcanic activity during the mid 1990's.

These Orioles eat mostly insects, but are also known to eat fruit and nectar.

Montserrat Orioles breed seasonally, they nest from June until August and the females build hanging basket like nests from plant matter and incubate the eggs. However both parent feed their young. They are monogamous. The parents will continue to feed their young even after they have fledged.

This species has always had an extremely small range, but recent volcanic activity has seriously reduced the size of their habitat and has damaged the forests. The increase in hurricane activity is also damaging their habitats. Predators such as rats are also decreasing the numbers of chicks to fledge.   ( Copied from Twycross site )

The best part of the day was when we went to see the elephants. The elephant enclosure at Twycross has been highly improved since I last went. We spent ages watching an elephant that waded into the water about 4 feet from us and kept diving until it was completely covered by water and then it would pop up again. It did this over and over and was so funny !  See the picture above.

This is the same elephant before it went for a swim .

The Elephants at Twycross are all Asian elephants. Here is a bit more info :

Asian Elephants are much smaller than their African counterparts. They are, on average, 3m (10ft) tall and 6m (25ft) long. The males can weigh up to 5000kg, which is about the same as 62 men! They also have much smaller ears too. African elephants have large rounded ears whereas Asian elephants have smaller squared ears.

The Asian Elephant was once found throughout India and South-east Asia. Now it is restricted to small areas of India, Indo-China, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia and Southern China. In these countries they live in various habitats including tropical rainforest, tropical deciduous forest and mountains.

Asian Elephants are one if the largest herbivorous mammals in the world. In the wild their diet consists mainly of grasses, leaves, trees and shrubs. At Twycross Zoo there are fed cabbage, bread, apples, bananas, carrots, leaves and a manufactured dry food to make sure they get all their vitamins.

Female elephants and their offspring are very social and live in 'herds'. Each herd has a 'matriarchs', a mature female leads the group. The 'matriarch' will lead the group to the best places to feed and drink and so passing on her knowledge to the nest generation. Males usually wander solitarily only meeting with the females to mate.

Asian elephants breed, on average, seven times during their lifetime at intervals of between 4 and 6 years. After mating the female is pregnant for 20 - 22 months (almost 2 years). The calf will then suckle for up to 3 years (up to 5 years in captivity). If it is a female then it will remain in the group for its lifetime.

Twycross is probably most well know for its chimpanzees. The PG tips chimps from the old adverts came from there and my Mum says they used to have a chimps tea party. Now they are kept more natural and have indoor and outdoor enclosures.

We saw so many animals it would take all day to list them but I have to add a pic of the penguines, they were hilarious !

And the Otters who were the biggest attention seekers of the day :D

                                       This is my cutest picture of the vist 

Twycross Zoo is well worth a visit there is so much to see.

OPAL bug survey

Yesterday I did the OPAL bug survey in my Nana's garden. Me and my little brother did 3 x 15 minute surveys finding bugs on soft ground,  hard surfaces and plants. It was fascinating ! We found slugs, snails, worms, bees, various flies and beetles, woodlice, earwigs and centipedes. We used our book to identify a large group of tiny beetles on 1 plant and found out they were carpet beetles . Here is the link if you want to take part :  http://www.opalexplorenature.org/

The Opal survey also counts toward my Wildlife Action Awards :o)

This is a picture of a carpet beetle

Latin name: Anthrenus verbasci

Size: Between 3 and 5mms long

Distribution: Found throughout the UK

Months seen: March to October

Food: The adult beetles feed on nectar and pollen. The larvae feed on dry materials and dead insects. They have been known to reduce museum collections to piles of dust.

Habitat: Woods, parks, gardens and sometimes inside houses.

Special features: The adult beetles sometimes appear on walls and window sills in spring and early summer. The patterns can vary, but they mostly feature a zig-zag of light and dark colouration.

The females like to fly inside houses to lay their eggs. There can be up to 100 eggs, and when they hatch, the young feed on woolen clothing and carpets, especially soiled materials.

The larvae of these beetles are commonly called 'wooly bears' on account of their bristly haired appearance.

Info borrowed from  http://www.uksafari.com

Wildlife Action Awards

Over the next few months I am going to take part in the RSPB Wildlife Action Awards. There are 3 certificates to do, bronze, silver and gold. I will need to do 6 activities from their list for each award and it includes things like making a wildlife pond, pond dipping, identifying wild flowers, providing homes for wildlife etc. I really want to help wildlife and learn about different things by doing the awards and would like as many people as possible to join in to. If you would like to do them too follow this link :  http://www.rspb.org.uk/youth/makeanddo/do/actionawards/index.aspx  and click on ' How to take part ' on the left hand side  :o)

Today I made a bird box and a bug house at Butterflies Home Education Group. It was a bit stressful because it kept falling apart but I really pleased with them now they are finished ! If you would like to make a bird or bug house for your garden there is a pattern here :    http://www.rspb.org.uk/youth/makeanddo/activities/smallnestbox/index.aspx
http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/projects/insects-bug-box/

And don't forget it counts toward your Wildlife Action Awards !

Sunday I found a Lime Hawk Moth !

Lime Hawk Moth on my Mums finger

Yesterday at my Nana's my little brother just missed treading on a moth on the floor. It was the strangest moth I have ever seen so I photographed it and then googled what it was. It is a Lime hawk moth !

The Lime Hawk Moth has a wing span of 20 - 80mm. The males and females vary in colour with males being pink to olive green and females, pink to reddish brown. It is characterised by blotches or a band of olive green across the forewings. This band of colour in combination with the forward  position of the  hindwings when resting,  disrupt the typical  outline  of the moth, that  predators of moths look for when they are hunting their prey.

The Lime Hawk Moth flies from May to July and in the day can be found resting on walls and trees .  Caterpillars of the Lime Hawkmoth  feed on limes, elms, birches and Alder,  and have a slightly  curved bluish horn at the tail end.  They are active from June to September and you might spot full-grown caterpillars crawling down tree trunks in parks and on city  limes when they go  in search  of a pupation  site.  At this stage  the body changes in colour  from yellowish-green to  a dull purplish colour.   The Lime Hawk-moth

overwinters as a pupa, usually buried just below the  ground, close to the foodplant.  

Learn more about Butterflies and Moths here :  http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/

Derbyshire Bat Conservation Group

On Friday I went on a bat walk at Albert village with Derbyshire Bat Conservation Group.

They gave me a bat monitor that made a different sound with every type of bat. There are 17 species of bat in Britain 11 of these have been found in Derbyshire. Here is the link to the group http://www.derbyshirebats.org.uk/

We only saw a few bats, but we saw GLOW WORMS !!!!! I didn't think they were in this country they were a really bright green.

DID YOU KNOW :

Female glow worms glow to attract a mate. Once they have mated and laid their eggs they die. If they don't find a mate they die from exhaustion from creating the glow. The male glow worms can fly to find their mate.