There's a small wooden building in the middle of Habberley Valley that many years ago used to be a teahouse.

For the last few years it has been put to use as a small visitors centre.

Unfortunately, though, there are only a few Rangers responsible for all aspects of the management of the district's ten nature reserves and it has proven to be impossible to operate this facility throughout the year.

Hence, the centre is only open to the public during the afternoons of the school summer holidays.

For the rest of the year, it becomes a meeting room for wildlife groups and a base for the Young Rangers Club when activities are being run in the valley.

As well as people, the visitors centre is also used by some of the valley's more secretive wildlife as a winter refuge.

Slow worms and peacock butterflies frequently use the space under the floors and in the gaps under the eves during the winter.

Opening the centre up the other day, I was greeted by a swarm of lacewings, which had just emerged from spending their winter in hibernation in the centre.

Lacewings get their name from their wonderfully delicate lace-like wings.

These combined with this insect's pastel brown or green colouration, delicate limbs and fine, long waving antenna give it a very dainty, almost fairy like appearance.

Hardly surprising then that these adult lacewing are far from being ferocious predators and are instead themselves an important early springtime prey item for bats.

Bats hunt by using their ultrasound echolocation system, which is highly effective and, therefore, they manage to consume huge numbers of insects using this system.

Lacewings have a secret weapon, though, to help them outwit the bats.

They have the ability to be able to listen into the bat's ultrasound and can therefore determine when the bat is closing in for the kill.

The lacewings then fold their wings and take dramatic evasive action.

While these flimsy- looking lacewings fluttered past me looking totally harmless as I opened up the visitor centre door, they are in fact Jekyll and Hyde characters.

Like the ugly maggot-like caterpillars that metamorphose into beautiful, graceful butterflies, the lacewing starts off life as a bloodthirsty killer.

As lava, the lacewing is a short, stocky tank-like creature armed with a ferocious set of jaws.

The lava prowls around vegetation and tree leaves looking for aphids, which it bites into pieces with its jaws, drains their internal fluids, then gruesomely piles the dried out husks of its victims upon its back.