The Whitlingham Bird Report for 2023 is now available to download from the Bird Reports page or from here

NORWICH: Springtails in the garden

Late November 2020

A group of species that I have been thinking of paying more attention to in 2021 are the Springtails, tiny creatures that are abundant in leaf litter and soil, but also in most other habitats too. It makes sense to have a look for the larger ones first (and that is relative, i.e. 4mm instead of 1 or 2mm!). Whilst playing in the garden with my daughter on a drizzle day I noticed lots of springtails on the top of our gardening box. There was at least two different species, as some where long and thin whilst others were round, a shape known as globular. Sticking them under the microscope it turned out there were three species, Dicyrtomina saundersi, Entomobrya intermedia and Entomobrya multifasciata. No springtails seem to have many Norfolk records based on NBN (indeed the NBIS contribution seems to be only four records!) so it seems like if I do start to generate some records they could be noteworthy in a county context. The fact that I can find them in the garden. the local park and at Whitlingham also might come in handy whilst travel restrictions are in place.




No comments:

Post a Comment