Winter Search

 

Have you ever gone on a Winter Search

When the snow is on the ground,

To find how bugs survive the cold

And where they can be found?

 

On a rafter down in my tool shed

Hangs a silver spider web,

Holding orbs of silken paper

Where the baby spiders live.

 

They’re safe inside for winter, until

Springtime nods her head.

Then they’ll fly off in the sunshine,

On strings of silver thread.

 

The dead log in my backyard

Provides shelter for a few

Ants, termites and beetles,

Even a queen wasp or two.

 

And huddled in a bundle

In the wood is something great

A hundred ladybird beetles

Together hibernate.

 

A click beetle lives in the log

In a hole drilled to the core.

A place to spends its life cycle

For a couple years or more.

 

I wonder, child, what you might find

If you should choose to play

Your own winter search party game

As I have done today.