All things bright and beautiful

The name of Hayley's "experience" this term. She's thrilled to bits to have the opportunity to indulge and share her passion for all manner of creepy crawlies. So, armed with bug collecting kits, complete with magnifying glasses, notebooks and tweezers, we went out to a nature reserve today (SA people, think small, think really, really tiny!) to have a hunt around for minibeasts.




We didn't have to look too hard actually. The place is covered in horrible stinging nettles (just ask Tyran! And sadly, no more magic cure...) and where there are nettles there are ladybirds by the dozen. We also spotted dragonflies, butterflies, bumblebees and various other things just labelled "bugs".



An interesting day with the weather. It was either blazing hot or pouring with rain. Someone was not impressed to be doing this particular activity at the beginning anyway, and when it started raining, he became very grumpy. The rain also did very interesting things to his hair!



We had the unexpected pleasure of being able to do some pond dipping. I don't think the poor man in charge of the activity knew what he was in for at the beginning. He was exceedingly patient though, and seemed quite happy to listen to her chatting away and answer her neverending questions. Pond dipping was pretty productive and the one time in the day that Tyran didn't complain about being rained on.






So all in all a success. Hayley got home and started on a book about all she'd seen. Her list that was made on the way has been copied into the book and apparently I'll be helping her with all her interesting information. Lucky me!



Apologies for the complete photo overload. It was a particularly good photo day today and it's hard to choose. There are, needless to say, plenty more on Flickr. I've also decided that I just might *need* a decent macro lens... when I win the lottery!