Now that the long winter is finally over Club Wild have been busy out and about exploring the wildlife and plants around us and starting to give them a helping hand for the months ahead. Catch up with all our adventures here…
Club Wild – Animal tracks and Signs
We put on our detective hats and set out to find what animals we have living in the school area. We might not see them all the time as they are shy and hide from us but we know they are there from the clues they leave behind. We took with us identification guides but most importantly our alert senses and curiosity.
The snow left the ground wet and muddy which makes an excellent surface for preserving paw prints. Looking down, we identified dogs large and small, ducks and other birds and deer. One small track even looked like it has been left behind by a hedgehog.
We thought about other clues that animals might leave. Erin said they could leave fur or feathers behind. She is right, sometimes when animals brush past bushes or fences some of their fur gets left. We found some very soft grey/brown fur that we think was left by a rabbit.
Lucas said that they would leave poo and he is absolutely right. Identifying animal droppings is a great way to kmow what animals are there as all animals eat and get rid of their waste as droppings. Scientists call animal droppings scat. Using our scat id sheet we can now tell the difference between the rabbit (rounded) and deer (pointy at one end) droppings. We also found what looked to be fox poo as we could see fur, tiny bones and seeds within the scat.
We also found some pellets, again full of animal bones and fur. Pellets are the undigested parts of a bird’s food which are coughed up through the beak. You can tell which bird left the pellet by dissecting it and finding out what small mammals that are around and then eaten.
We were rewarded with the sight of three beautiful deer! They watched us for a bit before moving on. There are lots of other clues to look out for, nibbled bark on trees, nibbled hazelnuts left under the hazel trees. We have found nuts nibbled by wood mice and those eaten by squirrels before.
We also found lots of tracks and signs left by us as we stumbled over what humans leave behind… rubbish. From the old rubbish of the Victorian bottle dump to all the litter left behind today. Let’s be more like animals and leave behind things that can decompose.
Club Wild, Mrs Young and Sarah-Jane
