Now the days are longer and a little warmer the woodland is full of bird song. The Top and Bottom Ponds are teeming with life, the bluebells that carpet the floor of the woodland that runs alongside the railway line will soon provide a welcome burst of colour ready for the May Day bank holiday. Woodland plants such as Bluebell and Primrose, flower in spring before the leaves are fully out on the trees as they need plenty of sunlight to make food and grow.
Acorn Club members who visited us over February half term and Easter planted native trees such as Rowan, Oak, Ash, Hornbeam, Birch and Beech around Bottom Pond. The Acorn Club members attached name labels to the tree guards and each time they visit will be able to check the progress of the trees they planted.
The Acorn Club has also been busy creating a new Love Bugs trail by putting up insect boxes and constructing a log pile from the fallen tree branches of Pine, Oak, Beech and Birch. Log piles are a valuable habitat for mosses, lichens and fungi as well as many insects.
In woodlands, fallen wood occurs naturally and many creatures have adapted to use this habitat
In our increasingly tidy countryside, fallen and dead wood is not so common. A pile of logs simulates fallen trees; it is best placed in a shady spot so that it remains cool and damp.
Insects are important to the environment; pollinating plants, decomposing wood and leaves and are a food source for other wildlife.
You could help bring wildlife into your garden by making insect homes; take an old plant pot, fill it with leaves and then turn it upside down and place it somewhere cool, dark and damp or take a bundle of bamboo canes, tie them tightly together and hang them from a tree branch and the minibeasts will soon move into their new home.
Let us know at Kelling Heath Countryside department how you created your insect home, or draw a picture of its design and it will be entered into our competition. Beetle away…….. Mail the Kelling Heath Countryside department click here
WINTER NEWSLETTER 2007/8
Thursday 20th of December 2007
Hello Acorn Club Members
The beautiful season of Autumn with its golden leaves and amazing fungi has made way for winter.
Here at Kelling Heath the wildlife has been busy getting ready for the dark, long winter days. The Nightjars have left to spend the winter in Africa and resident birds such as robins, wrens and blackbirds are feeding on the plentiful berries and seeds of trees and shrubs such as holly, hawthorn, rowan and blackthorn.
Beech, oak and hazel trees have hard seed cases and birds and squirrels store these in the ground. Sometimes they forget where they were hidden and the seeds germinate and grow.
If all is quiet, Red deer and the little Muntjac deer can be seen and heard barking in the woods.
Muntjac deer originated from China and Taiwan. They were brought to London Zoo in 1840. Since then many escapees have reproduced and the UK population has been estimated at about 40,000!
The Muntjac's favourite place to live is in bramble thickets in mixed woodland as we have here at Kelling Heath. They are browsers, and feed on shrubs, shoots and grass often causing damage by stripping bark from trees and destroying young vegetation – but we still love to see them.
. Compettion Summer 2007
Write a story - Draw a picture - Write a poem - Take a photograph
Thank you for all the wonderful competition entries
Winners included the Smith family from Rackheath, Norwich.
Their entries were wildlife themed collages, made with natural material found here at Kelling Heath Holiday Park. Very well done!
Ruby Douglas composed a charming book of poems telling of her happy holiday here at Kelling. Congratulations Ruby from all in the Countryside department
We all look forward to your entries next season and don’t forget that photographs of Kelling Heath wildlife and habitat can also be submitted.
