Yesterday, after taking out a few weeds, I swept sand into the cracks between the paving slabs by the front door. Already this morning, there are signs of activity. Could these be tracks left by an insect? Or a woodlouse?
Something has been active in the corner. I didn’t notice this tiny snail shell until I spotted in the photograph. It might have been dislodged from a crevice yesterday but I suspect that it’s been introduced along with the sand.
The sand is from Denmark. The grains are small, mostly less than a millimetre, and well-rounded, so perhaps this is windblown sand from a former dune system. Denmark has extensive dunes along its western, North Sea, coast and, further inland, extensive areas of glacial sand and gravel.
In my photograph, the glassy grains are quartz and I think that the larger, fleshy-looking ochre fragments are feldspar.
Doorstep Bio-blitz
The seven species that I disturbed as I weeded around the paving stones yesterday come from seven different families, four classes and three phyla, so, within inches of our front door, we have an annelid worm, a gastropod mollusc, an isopod crustacean and a social insect.
I disturbed a large ant as I swept the driveway, which I guessed was a queen. The queen disposes of her wings after her nuptial flight, then sets about finding a suitable site – such as here under the paving stones – to start her colony.
Coincidentally, later, a few yards away, I spotted a worker ant carrying a single transparent wing, which looked like one that had been discarded by a queen.
| Common Name | Family or Order | Class or Subphylum | Phylum |
| Earthworm | Lumbricidae | Clitellata | Annelida |
| Garden Snail, Helix aspersa | Helicidae | Gastropoda | Mollusca |
| Keelbacked Slug | Limacidae | Gastropoda | Mollusca |
| Woodlouse | Isopoda | Crustacea | Mollusca |
| Shield Bug | Hemiptera | Insecta | Arthropoda |
| Rove Beetle | Staphylinidae | Insecta | Arthropoda |
| Ant | Formicidae | Insecta | Arthropoda |