We spent a fascinating few days in the orchard this summer discovering which insects live in this habitat and finding out what it’s like to be a bee or a bug.

We borrowed a moth trap for the week and discovered an amazing arrray of moths that visit the orchard at night.   Moths such as the Jersey Tiger Moth, the Stripped Hawkmoth, an Autumn Tip and Ermin Buff among many others were captured.  As you can see we managed to get very close to these night flying creatures.     

We were also visited by a local bee expert who brought along an observation hive, our job was to spot the Queen Bee who had been marked with a bright green dot.   We found out that bees work their way up the hierarchal system in the hive, from cleaning the hive to collecting the pollen, and it’s the female bees that do all the work!

The children made a bug house for the orchard which visitors will be able to help monitor, they also created some pieces of artwork inspired by the insects we discovered.

We have been so excited by the variety of moths we have found we are planning to carry out some further monitoring of both moths and butterflies that are visiting our orchard, and next year we’re hoping to do some batwatching and mammal tracking, if we’re lucky we might even spot some of the elusive creatures that frequently visit us.