As well as the wonderful selection of fungi I posted yesterday, my foray with friends to the Coed Ty Rhiw woodland also produced a few small critters – easy to spot when your eyes are focused downward, searching the ground and around trees and rotten logs for fungi. Here are just a few that we found …

Pill millipede (Glomeris marginata). Like the pill woodlouse, these little creatures can roll into a ball when threatened, and live in damp places below stones and logs or in leaf litter.

The White-legged snake millipede (Tachypodoiulus niger) also prefers a moist habitat, under rocks or logs or the bark of trees, and curls up when feeling vulnerable.

Garden bumblebee queen (Bombus hortorum), newly emerged from hibernation. She has the distinction of having the longest tongue of all British bumblebee species, which means she’s essential for agriculture, for pollinating flowers of the pea, bean and clover families.

Gymnochaeta viridis, a bright metallic-green fly with prominent bristles on its thorax and abdomen that is mostly seen in woodlands in the springtime.