FOR many years now I have been organising and leading children's "bug-hunting" activities.

Most of these have taken place in one particular area of woodland in Habberley Valley.

It was decided to allow this style of activity to take place in only one particular area so that any disturbance to the invertebrate population of Habberley was limited.

The area selected is near the small visitor centre and has a piece of woodland with an open area under the tree canopy.

Initially, it was thought this area would not contain too much in the way of weird and unusual invertebrates but, over the years, there have been some interesting finds.

These included land-living caddis flies, the large finely-coloured violet ground beetle, hornets, false scorpions and a representative of an ancient group of insects known as Dilta.

However, most of the time it is just the usual suspects that are turned up by the "bug-hunting" children.

One of the easiest ways to find mini beasts, no matter what the weather, is to turn over an old log.

The bug hunt area at Habberley has many of these, both natural and brought in for the purpose.

When lifting a log you can usually bet on finding a centipede or two, the occasional spider, the odd slug, and perhaps a ground beetle.

Sometimes the logs, particularly silver birch, will have an infestation of ants and, in this case, there is usually very little else. One animal, no matter what, will always be a certain find and this is the humble woodlouse.

Woodlice are related to crustacia - a family that includes crabs and lobsters. But, unlike most crustacia, woodlice have mainly evolved to live on land. There are a few exceptions, the most notable being the sea slater which lives around our coasts.

The sea slater is also our largest woodlouse and can grow up to 3cm in length. There are a further 31 species of woodlouse to be found in Britain.

The most frequently encountered creature found under logs is the rough woodlouse which has knobbly, segmented bands of armour.It has a polished appearance and is marked with two rows of yellow dapples.

Woodlice, which descend from a mainly marine animal family, prefer to live in damp conditions but have adapted well to living on dry land.

Unlike some animals that have aquatic descendants, the woodlouse doesn't need to return to the water to breed.

It creates its own little bit of salty ocean in which its young can develop in the form of a water-filled pouch which it carries around on its underside until the young have gestated and hatched.