Minibeasts Traditional Cache

The cache is a traditional box but you will have to look 'deep inside the wood' to find it! Inside the cache is also a challenge card giving other things to look for around this site if you are visiting with a group. This is not a swap.

The woodland here is made up of Sitka Spruce trees. Sitka Spruce or Picea sitchensis takes its name from Sitka – the capital of Alaska in its Russian colonial days. It grows naturally in Canada along the western seaboard down to Oregon where it enjoys a wet misty climate just like our summers. Here they are all rather tall and spindly as the wood was not thinned out in its early days. Because they are so close together little light gets to the ground so there are no flowers or butterflies around. But spiders and other minibeasts will live here.

Thank goodness for minibeasts. We all do our bit for recycling and not dropping litter. But here in the woods we need minibeasts to do our recycling. Once the fungi have started to rot the wood – along comes woodlice and millipedes to eat the rotting wood, and the fungi too. And what's the result? - more lovely soil for growing trees!