These hard brown balls on the twigs of young oaks are NOT oak apples; they are MARBLE GALLS. Green and hard to see in late summer, by now they are hard and woody. You can usually find a small hole where the adult gall wasp has emerged.
Now this (below) IS an oak apple. It starts off small and pink - like an apple.
As oak apples mature they change from red to brown but remain softer and scalier than the smaller marble galls.
You can see these oak apples on an oak on the slope above the Jubilee Way
in the Cowshed Field.
Each oak apple contains several gall wasp larvae but all either male or female. They emerge in June or July.
I love all these amazing facts! I work at a local school and enjoy passing on the nature info to the pupils I work with. I always look forward to reading these posts. Thanks for sharing all your nature knowledge.
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