I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only parent that’s keen for their kids to understand and appreciate the nature that’s all around us, but the thing that always amazes me is how many people overlook the nature that’s right there under their noses in their own back garden.
Mr C and I have always been big nature lovers and that was cemented when we bought our first home together. Instead of having a back garden we instead explored a local community nature reserve that was at the end of our street. It gave us the desire to create our own little bit of a nature paradise once we had our own back garden and in the six and a half years that we’ve lived here I’d like to think that that’s what we’ve started to do.
When we moved into the house we had huge plans to turn the then boring garden into a mix of wild areas, a pond, a boggy area and so much more. First things first though we put up a bird feeder in hope that we could encourage back all the birds that had been scared away by the previous owner’s cat. I clearly remember being all excited about going and buying this bird feeder in our local Wilko and so it seemed somewhat fitting to be asked to become a Wilko Wild Bird Blogger and try to share some of that excitement again with Master C.
Little Miss C is lucky enough to go to a school where they do loads of outdoor learning and are regularly setting up bird feeders and insect hotels, so it seemed right to do this particular project with Master C alone. And as soon as he came home from pre-school and saw the huge box from Wilko he was super excited. Inside they had sent us:
- Wilko Wild Bird Nesting Box
- Wilko Wild Bird Wooden Bird Table
- Wilko Wild Bird Cage Seed Feeder
- Wilko Wild Bird Food
Master C was so keen to get straight outside and start feeding the birds and “get their house ready”. I particularly loved the way that he looked at the hanging hold on the back of the nesting box and keenly pointed out to me that it was the key hole that the birds used to lock their house up safe from burglars!
Mr C set about building the Wooden Bird Table with Master C one afternoon.
The bird table comes flat packed and assembling it was pretty straightforward to do, but he did mention that a couple of the pre-drilled holes didn’t totally line up. Mr C being a complete DIY pro these days it didn’t cause too many problems though.
The table itself isn’t that tall – making it a great height for Master C to help place food on it, but it did concern us slightly that the neighbour’s cat may try and leap from the fence on it it, so we tied it down with some hoops that were previously used to pin out the kids’ football goal and that seems to have done the trick.
For just £10 it is a complete steal!
We’ve popped up the nesting box, following all the guidance about how you should locate it such that the entrance isn’t directly facing the sun, and also positioning it so birds can have somewhere to perch and check all is clear before going in to it. It’s a bit early in the year for anything to nest in it yet, but hopefully various birds will see it there and consider it for later in the spring.
We filled the feeder with the bird food (which as a household who has to avoid anything containing peanuts due to Mr C’s allergy, we were delighted to see had a full ingredients list on the packaging – nice one Wilko) and hung it up in a tree where a previous feeder had been and sat back and waited to see what came to feed from it.
The problem with sitting down with the kids to do a spot of birdwatching is that sod’s law dictates that not much turns up when you do! Hence lots of pictures of the bird table or feeder looking pretty, but with no nature in sight!
We’ve not been lucky enough yet to catch on camera anything using either but Mr C and I have spotted a few Great Tits doing so over the last week. And let’s say that one rather large feathered friend has certainly left us a “calling card” on the bird table to suggest they’ve paid it a visit!
I think it’s vital that all of us that live in towns and cities pay our part in trying to make our gardens as attractive as possible to all different types of wildlife and the Wilko Wild Bird range is the perfect way to start trying to attract birds into your garden in a really affordable way. The kids get so excited when they spot things in the back garden, normally at breakfast time it seems, and it’s lovely to see them getting that thrill from something as simple as nature. Our top spots to date have to be the fox that sometimes has a wander around and a couple of beautiful Jays that seem regular visitors. With Mr C having finally finished and filled our new nature pond, I’m excited to see what else comes to visit us now and hope I’ll be reporting back soon!
If you fancy turning your back garden into a special place for nature then the RSPB website is a great place to start for loads of information about how to give nature a home in your garden.
Disclaimer: Wilko sent us the Wilko Wild Bird Blogger pack as detailed above in exchange for this blog post. All opinions are my own.
We started making our back garden more wildlife friendly last year but we need to work on it more this year.