To Explore, Enjoy and Enhance

Friends of Studham Common

The Common may look very pretty as the frost and snow glitters in the winter sunshine but do remember there are lots of animals that have to survive the cold out there.  Many of the smallest species, insects, spiders, snails and others, creep into sheltered nooks and crannies and just shut down for the winter.  They go into a special hibernating state and secrete a form of anti-freeze in their bodies to prevent damaging ice crystals forming in their tissues.  Prolonged cold is best for these species as unseasonable warm weather may fool them into coming out of hibernation only to be caught by the next cold snap.  Other species stay active throughout the winter becoming torpid during the coldest weather but resuming their normal lives as soon as the temperature rises again.  Sheltered bottoms of hedges, drifts of dead leaves, decaying wood and long tussocky grass all provide vital hiding places for these small animals and also for shrews, voles and other small mammals.  Birds search for food in these places as well so let’s not make the Common (or our gardens) too tidy.  Wildlife needs somewhere to feed and shelter when the going gets tough.

See December’s Nature Notes

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