Creating a Bird Friendly Garden with the help of BNSS

Yesterday morning I woke to the sound of the dawn chorus for the first time this year.  There is something so peaceful about listening to birds singing in the trees and we love watching them as look for worms in the front garden.

The team at Sykes Cottages invited us to make our garden more bird friendly after running a survey that found out that less than a third of people have a nest box up in their garden and sent us a pack of goodies to encourage more birds into our garden.  I have to admit that we did have bird feeders up last year but the local Squirrels managed to break them.

We decided to concentrate on the front garden as it is quieter and not packed full of toys, which would be nicer for nesting birds. Plus we can watch the comings and goings from our lounge window.

In our bird friendly pack we received a build-your-own bird feeder, bird seed, a nest box and a Fat Bird fat cake making kit and although we couldn’t wait to get started we decided to wait until after we had been to a Dorset Wildlife open day at the Bournemouth Natural Science Society and Museum (BNSS) to get some advice.

The BNSS building is next door to my Aunt’s old flat but I have to admit we hadn’t visited before so wasn’t sure what we would find.  It is a stunning old building with a warren of narrow corridors, elegant staircases and rooms backed full of history.

The first room we visited was packed full of fossils and Isaac and Eliza were in their element.  They asked lots of questions and were most impressed with the Dinosaur footprints that were on the wall having been found locally in Swanage.

Next up was Ancient Egypt and they had a real Mummy on display.  The Mummy has undergone scans and they had images up on screen next to it, along with a reconstruction of what she would have looked like.  It was fascinating and we spent quite a long time asking questions before heading to the archeology room, where we found a cupboard of curiosities.  It was packed full of skulls and the kids did a great job of identifying them.

The house is packed full of stuffed animals around every corner and Sebby was running around like a maniac pointing at them all, before we found garden where we got to do some pond dipping, planting our own beans and making our own bird feeders and insect houses.

The Dorset Wildlife Trust experts were amazing with the children.  Their genius idea of making bird feeders from old industrial cotton reel centres is not only fun for the kids but inexpensive too.  They were also on hand to offer wildlife friendly gardening advice with hands-on workshops and stalls which inspired us to look after our garden with wildlife in mind, so we made a lady bird house out of an old plastic bottle and some cardboard and made a house for the bees by just drilling holes into a wooden block.

The kids were fascinated by the pond dipping and were most impressed at finding a newt and then we learned all about their life cycles by completing some jigsaw puzzles and then the placing models of each image in the right place on the jigsaw.

We then headed back inside to see some insects and a live “flying cockroach” demonstration before heading home inspired to do our own garden.

We are going to invest in a couple of new hooks for the bird feeders and a Butterfly Mat to encourage bees and butterflies into the garden, but I am happy with the start we have made to our wildlife friendly garden and the fat cakes are an inspired idea!  You can use any silicone cupcake case, pour in some old cooking fat (we used the fat after cooking sausages), add some bird seed and chill in the fridge…….voila!

Let’s hope we have some birds nesting very soon.