Today was a very busy day on our allotment. At the weekend our brand new beds were built and it was now our job to fill them with compost. The children took their tools and wheelbarrows and started to fill the beds but soon we were distracted by a family of snails who had decided to sit on the side of one of our old beds. The children were worried the snails might get hurt so relocated them to another part of the allotment. We then began to dig for minibeasts. We found a huge number of worms and quite a few woodlice.

After lunch we engaged in a spot of pond dipping. Dylan managed to catch a tadpole, much to our surprise! But how did we still have tadpoles? We were expecting a frog but four tadpoles later and still there were no frogs to be found. Where had all the frogs gone? We decided to head off on a frog hunt. We checked all the best ‘frog home’ places, the compost bin, the poly tunnel, under the decking, until we came to a long flower bed where a large frog had been spotted a few weeks prior. The children began to look for frogs but instead we spotted something else! A poo! Who could this poo belong to and why was it in our flower bed?

Freddie thought he had seen an orange tail which could mean only one thing – we had a sneaky fox on our allotment! We began to search for more evidence of a fox. We spotted a large void under our shed which Kirsten began to inspect. Underneath our shed was a pile of snail’s shells. Could this have been a foxy snack? We began to search further and found holes which had been dug around our allotment. Who could have done this? We started to research what type of animal it could be and decided upon three options, a fox, badger or hedgehog. But how would we find out for sure? Tara remembered back at nursery we have a wildlife camera which we could take to the allotment and leave there to catch the animal’s movements. The children were so excited. We can’t wait to find out what animal is hiding under our shed! We will keep you updated!