WOODLAND SUPERHEROES STUDIOS
“I was just going to step over it. Then something moved.”
– Rowan
I was trying to step on every crunchy leaf.
Not for any important reason.
I just liked the noise.
Dad was walking a bit ahead of me, and I was taking much longer because I kept moving from one side of the path to the other looking for the driest leaves.
Then I nearly stepped onto a fallen log.
It wasn’t a very exciting-looking one.
It was dark and wet, and bits of the bark were coming loose.
I was just going to step over it.
Then something moved.
A woodlouse disappeared underneath a piece of bark.
I crouched down. I got my magnifying glass out of my backpack.
Then I saw another one.
And another.
There was green moss growing over one side of the wood.
Near the bottom were some tiny mushrooms.
There were little holes in the bark too.
I had no idea what had made them.
I got closer.
The wood smelled damp and muddy, a bit like the ground after it rains.
I’d nearly walked straight past it, but now there seemed to be stuff everywhere.
“Dad, how many things live in this?”
He walked back and looked at it.
“Probably more than we can see.”
I looked harder.
That was the annoying thing about Dad saying that.
Now I wanted to find them.
I thought fallen trees went rotten until there was nothing left.
But Dad told me old fallen wood is used by loads of things.
Woodlice.
Beetles.
Fungi.
Moss.
And sometimes creatures hide underneath it because it stays dark and damp.
So even though the tree was dead, lots of things were still using it.
A few minutes earlier, I’d nearly pulled off a loose piece of bark. I wanted to see what was underneath.
Now I kept thinking about the woodlice disappearing into that gap.
Nobody had told me to leave it alone. I just didn’t want to pull apart the place they were hiding.
So I left the bark where it was.
When we carried on walking, I kept spotting more fallen branches. Some had moss on them. Others had little mushrooms growing out of the cracks.
“Dad, look. There’s another one.”
He stopped and waited while I crouched down.
Now I wanted to see what was living on this one too.
There’s always something else to notice.
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