Things to look out for or do in your local park or woodland

Things to do to find out more about animal adaptations

Games for groups of children

Other activities

•  Badgers have a varied diet. Imagine you were creating a Badger’s favourite pizza. Their favourite toppings wouldn’t be cheese and pepperoni but extra worms and elderberries. Visit a local woodland (a good time to do this is in autumn), take a circle of card and stick a strip of double sided tape to the card. Using the tape stick berries and fruits to the card, look for minibeasts and signs of mammals, draw any you find onto the card. How good are you at finding the badgers favourite foods?

• Look out for molehills when walking near grassland or pasture. Can you work out how many different Mole territories you can find? Look out for freshly dug groups of molehills in June, these may be young moles setting up new homes.

• Look for signs of Water Voles along a river bank. Grass chewed off halfway down a leaf is a good sign. Sit some distance away and watch and wait to find a Water Vole. Remember Water Voles are most active during the day. << Beware of rat droppings, do not touch and wash hands after activity>> If you see a Water Vole, record where you saw it and contact Ecorecord to add your result to the regional biodiversity database.

• How good a squirrel would you make? At the start of your walk bury a collection of seeds. Make a mark on the seeds with a pencil or pen so you know they are yours. At the end of your walk try and find the seeds you've buried, are you successful? Imagine trying to find them after 4 months!

• In a woodland, look for signs of squirrels: pine cones which have been stripped to obtain the seeds; acorns and nuts which have been split open; stripped bark on trees; dreys in tree branches (these look like a large birds nest with dried leaves.)

• Look for worm casts on lawns and grass in winter. Some worms, the Allolobophora species, create worm casts. These are the small piles of worm shaped earth you can find on your lawn in winter. This is really worm poo, but it is not smelly, instead it contains lots of nutrients which is really good for the garden.

• Many snails live in the garden so they are easy to find and look at more closely. Look in your garden for snails, mark different snail shells with paint or wax crayon, record where you find them. Do the same snails always return to the same place day after day?

• There are about 37 different kinds of woodlice found in Britain. Have a go at woodlice identification. For a good online interactive woodland key look at: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/interactive/woodlice/identification.html

• Look for millipedes under stones, fallen leaves or rotting wood. They are generally easy to find. Place them in a bug pot or jam jar to look at closer, this is less stressful for the animal than holding tem in your hand. Use a magnifier to look at in more detail. Release your millipede back where you found it afterwards.

• Spiders often repair their webs first thing in the morning, after they are damaged by passing animals in the night. Get up early to watch this work, be patient and watch how the spider spins her silk. Spider webs are very nice to look for on frosty mornings, when they will be lit up by little water droplets.
• If you touch a web with a tuning fork, the vibrations will often fool the spider into rushing onto their web, thinking you are prey.

• Moles have a very good sense of smell. Can you determine what something is just by smelling it? Collect together a variety of items, some food, some non-food items (nothing poisonous), when blindfolded can you guess which are which just by using your sense of smell?

• The Otters coat is kept waterproof through natural oils. Detergents polluting water has affected Otter numbers by affecting their natural waterproofing. Once the Otter’s coat is damaged the Otter gets too cold and wet and dies. Investigate the effect of detergents: add a tablespoon of oil to a cup of water, even when shaken the oil and water do not mix. Now add some detergent in the form of washing up liquid, what happens to the oil and water when shaken up?

• Water voles have poor eyesight but very good hearing, how good is yours? This game can be played with a group of children. Blindfold a child and sit them on chair in the middle of the room. Draw or use a rope to make a circle around the chair, close to the chair. Ask the rest of the children to sit some distance away. Choose one child at a time to approach the chair being as quiet as they can, if they manage to get within the circle without the blindfolded child pointing directly at them, then they are successful at catching the Water Vole. If they are pointed at before entering the circle, then the Water Vole (the blindfolded child) survives.

• Female Deer (the doe) and their young keep in touch by calling to each other. This is a game that can be played with two or more people. Each pair must decide on a particular call noise. One of the pair finds somewhere to hide. Each time the person being the female deer calls, the person hiding (the fawn) must call back. Who can find their partner the quickest?

• Can you fool worms? Try different ways of getting worms to come to the surface: try tapping the ground with sticks to make it sound like raindrops; alternatively pour water on the ground and wait for the worms to arrive. You will need to wait and watch for a while. Who can charm the most worms out of the ground?

• Snails and slugs are unique in having a radula. To investigate how the radula works open an unused camera film, so the film becomes overexposed. Soak it and put it in a pot with some snails overnight. The radula will leave a pattern as they munch. Hold the film up against the window to see the tooth marks, use a hand lens magnifier to see in more detail.
• Have a snail race. Line some snails up on a piece of plastic. In front of each snail leave a thin trail of beer or liquidated lettuce. Watch the snails go, which is the fastest? If you use clear plastic you will be able to watch how the 'foot' moves.

• Investigate woodlice preferences. Mark the base of a cardboard box with pen, divide it up into four equal quarters. Cover one half with a lid to make it dark. In one of the dark and one of the light quarters place some damp cotton wool. Collect some woodlice and release into the middle. Where do the woodlice end up? How long does it take? Why do they make this choice? Release the woodlice when you have finished.

• Many centipedes do not have 'proper' eyes. They can just sense the difference between light and dark. How good are our perceptions? Try this at night inside. Close your eyes, ask a friend to control the light switch, with your eyes closed can you guess if the light is on or off? Is it more difficult if you are blindfolded? Centipedes need to be able to tell this difference as for them dark places mean safety.

• Harvestmen find their food through using scent. They have a good sense of smell. Ask a friend to make a collection of a variety of foods. Close your eyes, can you tell which are sweet and which are savoury foods from just using your sense of smell? Can you guess what any of the foods are? Humans also use our sense of smell to help us find things that are good or bad to eat, you soon know if you have found a rotten egg!

• Bat and Moth game

• Predator Prey Game

• Giant centipede

• Grey squirrel's thrive and do not need feeding during the winter months. If you feed the birds in your garden you may find that your feeder becomes hijacked by squirrels. You can deter this by buying a squirrel feeder, which aims to attract the squirrels away from the bird feeder. If you live in an area with red squirrels you can buy feeders just for red squirrels. To find out more contact: http://www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/durham/RedAlert/Education.html