Family Outing to Kings Wood 18.09.11 (part 1)

This morning (18.09.11) we as a family went to Kings Wood near Ashford for a walk in the woods.  It was a perfect combination of exercise and seeing what kind of wild life we could see.  We were all on the look out for new things and my wife and I found it invigorating to walk slowly looking for things, we didn't seem to notice that we weren't moving as quickly as we should ;-).

When we first arrived in the sheltered area of the wood, where hardly any strong sunlight penetrated at all, the first things we noticed were some small, black, shiney beetles.  They moved very slowly and looked very similar to the Scarab beetles you see in Egypt.

Black Beetle

We also saw a large selection of delightful Garden Spiders Araneus diadematus of all different colours.

Garden Spider 1 (of lots!)

Garden Spider 2 (the sequel)

We also saw a few of the spindly legged nearly spider creatures Harvestmen Order Oiliones, this one is climbing (rather rapidly) up a tree and is just about in focus.

Harvestmen (Harvestman?)

There were so many huge ants nests, they were humming with activity and the Wood Ants Formica rufa were rushing around, working really hard.  We spent some minutes just watching them and listening to them.  The nests themselves were made from wood, leaves, twigs and pine needles.

One of the many Ant Hills

And another one.

Also seen were lots of different types of fungi, pictures of these will follow.