People say nice things about the wooden cabins they stay in when they come on a Forest Holiday. But our log-based hospitality doesn’t extend just to humans (or their dogs) but some of the smaller guests on our woodland sites – the bugs!
The photo above is of a ‘bug hotel’, specially built by our rangers around autumn time for beetles and bugs. During summer they creep and crawl around the forest floor, or hover through the forest canopy. However when it comes to winter a bug’s life is all about finding somewhere nice and cosy to settle into during the cold wet months. The ideal place for our human visitors may be a comfortable log cabin complete with log burning stove and hut tub on the balcony but your average bug’s idea of heaven is a jumbled up pile of wood and stones with lots of cracks and crevices to snuggle into.
This winter our bug hotels have been more needed than ever by our six-legged friends. Even by any bugs’ standard this has been a year for a late lie-in deep in a covering of twigs. Even if they were thinking of venturing out the recent snows and cold spells will keep them snoozing for a few more weeks yet. It’s still a slow old start to spring and we think we’ll be seeing one of those years that, when the warm weather finally comes, will explode into glorious activity all at once.
That’s why so many of our visitors come back two of even three times every year. Well over half the population of the world lives in towns and cities these days and are really rather cut off from the glories of nature and her annual cycles. Come for three or four days now though, then the same again in summer, and in autumn, and you really can see what the seasons mean to us ‘out-of-townies’ (bugs included!) Perhaps that’s why many of our regular visitors like to come back to the same site and even stay in exactly the same cabin. By getting to know the view from their big picture windows they can more easily see how the seasons revolve.
For the next few weeks however nature will keep us guessing about when she plans to spring into life. Suddenly of course we have the added interest of seeing just how the cloud of ash from the volcano with the unpronounceable name in Iceland will affect matters. If there’s one thing you learn as a forest ranger it’s that no two years are ever the same.
Do come and see for yourself. Simply visit our website at www.forestholidays.co.uk. Whatever the weather we promise we’ll keep you as snug as a bug in a log pile!
This week’s forest trivia:
Did you know:
• Slugs have 4 noses
• Oak trees live for around 900 years – 300 growing, 300 in majestic middle age, 300 in graceful decline
• A duck’s quack never echoes (and nobody know why)
• Owls are the only birds that can see blue
• The UK has the largest concentration of ancient trees in Northern Europe
