Bugs, butterflies and a new neighbour

On Friday 17 August we held the 'Build a Bug Hotel' workshop. We had a great day for it and all enjoyed talking about bugs, looking for bugs, identifying some and building various homes for them. We used bug ID cards - twelve in all including beetle, butterfly, honey bee, wasp, earthworm, centipede, slug, snail, ant, woodlouse, garden spider and grasshopper. We found every one except the centipede and grasshopper - we heard the last one, but couldn't see it! I'd seen one earlier in the week, by the preschool fence.

Bug ID cards - we found nearly all of them!

After a general chat about which bugs we found scary or friendly, where they are likely to live and what they feed on, we took a tour of the garden. Under the cardboard and plastic is teeming with wildlife - and look what we found...

Common toad (photo courtesy Jo Cooper)

More about common toads from the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust here

We saw some lovely butterflies, including a large white (otherwise known as cabbage white), peacock and gatekeeper butterflies. We also found a colourful stripy caterpillar which will become a Cinnabar moth.

Peacock butterfly on the preschool buddleia

 More about the Peacock butterfly from Butterfly conservation here

Gatekeeper butterfly on golden marjoram

More about the Gatekeeper butterfly on BBC Nature here

Cinnabar moth caterpillar

More about the Cinnabar Moth at Buglife-The Invertebrate Conservation Trust here

To encourage butterflies into your garden visit the RHS website and download the list of plants and larval habitats. I was very pleased that we have so many in the community centre grounds, not just in the garden.

After finding out where bugs like to live, we set about designing our ideal bug hotel and then made some small ones to take home. During lunch, we all tasted some lavender and wildflower honeys and put our apple cores, banana and melon skins on the compost heap.

Lavender honey and a splendid bug hotel design in progress

Designing the bug hotels

Mini hotel designs using straw, sticks and twigs, leaves, wood and stones to take home

The bug 'hotel' is constructed!

Without having to buy anything, we constructed the hotel from five old pallets, scavenged bricks and stones, donated logs and rotting wood, twigs, branches and dead leaves from the garden - here is the result! Thanks go to our intrepid builders (and their helpers).

Two old pallets, logs, bricks and stones, straw, twigs and branches for the first two storeys of the bug hotel

Four proud hotel builders, with their handiwork

The later addition of a bridge, to help bugs get to the upper floors!

The bug hotel is still a work in progress and later we will add some tiles, hollow canes and eventually a green 'roof'. If you can donate canes and tiles and other goodies to the hotel, come along to the Edible Gardens Open Day on 15 September from 11am -4pm and the Wellbeing Community Event on 22 September from 12-4 pm and add to it yourself!