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Woodlands provide brilliant opportunities for wildlife watching in spring.
Join us on a nature safari and take a few tips from the Nature's Calendar's
team. | Crossbills
feeding their young.
Photo c/o Thetford Forest. |
If
you go down to the woods for the day, you'll be in for big treat with wide range
of nature watching activities.
To make the most of a day in the woods,
be prepared for an early start and set your alarm to arrive in time for the dawn
chorus at 5am. Here are three great activities for woodland wildlife spotters: *
Deer stalking.
* Snake watching - Thetford Forest.
* Woodland birds.
Deer
stalking  *
Look out for deer tracks especially on damp, soft ground. Deer leave distinctive
cloven hoofed prints.
* Deer are very shy so you need to get up early in
the morning to catch them. * These animals can see and hear as well as
humans and their sense of smell is much better than ours. * Deer can smell
humans from a kilometre away so don't put on anything smelly such as perfume,
deodorant or clothes smelling of fabric conditioner. * Have any wind in
your face and keep downwind of the deer. * Deer are mostly nocturnal so
another good time to look for them is at dusk. Snake
spotting  Thetford
Forest in East Anglia is an excellent place to spot snakes, especially in open
areas of the woods.
During spring Adders are still drowsy - their sight
and hearing are limited but they can detect vibration. If you want to see
them walk carefully and gently, and you may find them basking in the sun. They
need the heat to raise the body temperature to a level at which they become active.
Also keep your eyes open for the tin panels in the forest and look for
Adders underneath them. The males are grey/silver in colour whilst the female
is brown. Their main distinctive feature is a zig-zag marking on their skin. But
be careful to replace the tin as you found it, and don't pick up them up because
they are poisonous. Rare woodland birds  To
spot elusive woodland birds, keep scanning the trees and stay alert.
Don't
disturb the birds or their nests. Look for Goshawks as they go hunting -
they'll eat a huge variety of birds from songbirds to owls. They'll even pick
up the odd chicken from local farms. The Nightjar is one of the
hardest birds to spot - listen for its distinctive churring call. You
can tempt them by playing the sound of another bird which will cause the male
birds to fly up and start their display flight which they perform every Spring
to attract females. Look for flashes of the
male's white wing designed to attract females.
The
Nightjar's ideal habitat is open heathland where they like to nest. The
bird has a whiskered mouth for catching insects in flight. The best nights
to try watching for Nightjars are warm and clear evenings from early May through
to end of the summer. Also look out for Crossbills, a stocky-looking woodland
bird with a staccato call which frequents woodland areas. The female is
a distinctive yellow-green colour whilst the male is reddish and brown. Photo
credits  Thanks
to Roger Woods and Thetford Forest.
Adder photo
courtesy and copyright of Natural England and Peter Wakely. | 
