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Julia with one of her finds in her back garden
Julia with one of her finds in her back garden
Julia with one of her finds in her back garden

Young country diary: Slugs, worms and an ant colony – what a successful garden hunt!

Central London: I went out to see what I could find, and ended up feeling sorry for the earthworms

We share our garden with snails, slugs and ants. My mum has recorded incredible adventures of following the chomped plants and the trail of slime, feeling their presence. She told me about the different types of slugs she found. Our favourite is the leopard slug. It eats other slugs and rotting plants, fertilising the ground. Fascinated by her stories, I asked if I could go on a slug hunt myself. She was completely in favour of it. And so, I leave, hunting for any garden creature.

A white slug in Julia’s back garden.
A white slug in Julia’s back garden

My first find was an earthworm, accidentally dug up. It was trying to burrow back into the ground. Usually, a robin comes and eats the worms, but it didn’t come today. Next, I moved a compost bag. Unfortunately, an ant colony was there and was now frantic, crawling and picking up their larvae. This was extremely interesting as I’d never seen a colony up close before.

Snail in Julia’s back garden
Snail in Julia’s back garden

Soon after, I found my first molluscs: three black slugs were there on the ground. I could just see their tiny eyes on their tentacles. Then, I was shown a pile of leaves that had fallen on the ground into a heap – the perfect “bug hotel”! And finally: a white slug. They can be real pests. They’re apparently blind and eat earthworms. They burrow under the soil and rarely, at night, come up. The worm I found earlier clearly has quite a few predators.
Julia, 12

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