The indefatigable Mary Sheridan led the walk from the Woburn town car park. Her walk was well attended, the group numbering 29 people, but any YounGnats must have stayed at home playing with their Christmas presents since all 29 were adults. Shame!

Here’s Mary’s summary …

The weather was dry but cold and we had to keep moving to keep warm.  We had 42 bird species including Red Kite, Buzzard, Treecreeper, Siskin and Goldcrest.  On the mammal front we had good views of five species of deer – Red, Fallow, Sika, Muntjac and Chinese Water Deer – plus Rabbit and Grey Squirrel.  We watched a seemingly never-ending herd of Red Deer run across the road near Paris House and then down towards the lake in front of the Abbey.  It was quite an impressive sight.

Fallow Deer

At least 15 young naturalists came along and did some pond-dipping and sweeping, collecting a very varied list of creatures. They also enjoyed looking at the exhibits on our nature table.

Here are many of the things they found or saw.

Wow, what a haul!

On a cloudy Saturday morning a young naturalist called Freddie took his father along to join 6 naturalists in Kensworth Quarry searching for fossils.

Some of the naturalists were initially distracted by butterflies and other insects but they all made it into the quarry and diligently turned over loose stones for an hour looking for the elusive fossils. The site had recently been examined by the local geology group so only Janet, who had a little hammer and hoe, was lucky enough to find a fossil to show Freddie.

After lunch some time was spent exploring Five Knolls on Dunstable Downs where around 90 skeletons have previously been found, a good display of them is in Luton museum. Sadly, no more were found that day.

[Thanks for the following report to our correspondent, Erika Pratt.]

On Saturday 20^th April I joined 14 other people to attend the BNHS small mammal trapping event at the Old Warden Tunnel reserve. Mammal trapping using Longworth traps is a sensitive way of monitoring populations of small mammals in the countryside. Traps are set and baited with bedding and food overnight (to keep the creatures comfortable) and then the traps are checked as soon as possible in the morning to be recorded and weighed before being released again.

It was a beautiful sunny morning but it had been cold overnight so we told that we might not find many mammals.

Expert Richard [Lawrence], who is licensed to trap mammals, introduced the site and activity. He had set 28 traps where he knew the mammals may be present: under bushes, next to logs, in long grass, even up a tree hoping to catch a Yellow-necked Mouse!

The traps contained blow fly larvae, for insectivores such as shrews, and bird seed, for the mice, to help them survive overnight if trapped.

We did get excited when a few traps were sprung closed and one even contained haws (remains of hawthorn berry seeds), proving that a bank vole or wood mouse had been munching inside, but they had decided not to stay and had all got away.

On the walk around this lovely reserve, which is leased and managed by the Wildlife Trust, we observed and heard these other animals:

• Long-tailed Tit
• 4 Bullfinches flying over
• Black cap with a beautiful song
• Skylark
• Willow Warbler
• Chiffchaff
• Squirrel

Finally, in  the last but one trap, we found a wood mouse! It was a male and weighed 24g and, after it was caught and put into a bag, it was very well examined and photographed before being released again.

Definitely worth getting up early!

Why don’t you come to the next mammal trapping event on Saturday 31st August, 2013, at Duck End Nature Reserve?

In August 2012 we had a fun day at Priory Park, Bedford, featuring a nature walk and pond dipping. Here are a few snaps of what we got up to.