52 Weeks Wild #20

With extra hours at school and being extra busy at home this week, I've not had a lot of free time and my only 'wild time' this week was spending Saturday afternoon outdoors. The past week has been so busy in fact that I've only just got around to writing this post, two days later than usual!

I went down to Staffordshire Wildlife Trust HQ at Wolseley Bridge. I'd not been there for two or three years so it was nice to revisit. I'd gone to spend the afternoon on a minibeasting for adults event. I didn't expect it to be much different to what I do with children at Wildplay events (and it wasn't) but I went along as I thought it would be fun and I like to support these adult only events so they continue to be viable.

I arrived an hour early so I could have a wander around the site...

The highlight of the day was finding a couple of stag beetles under a tree trunk! They were lesser stag beetles. The first stag beetles I've ever seen as we don't get them further north in my part of the world.

The rain didn't help the bug hunting, there were some really heavy showers and the event was a little too early in the year so there weren't as many insects around as there will be in a few weeks, but it was worth going and we did find quite a few species, including my first shieldbug of the year, not yet an adult.