Making Bird Feeders....

This was our last meeting before Christmas... with Christmas performances etc, it is difficult to fit it in.. plus it is dark so early now, we will be glad when the evenings start getting lighter again and we can get outside a bit more.

We spent this meeting making some bird feeders. The first one we made is really easy... all you need are some rice cakes, lard and some bird seed....

First, spread the lard thinly onto one side of the rice cake..... then gently press it into a tray of seed so it all sticks on to the lard. The spread some lard on the other side and repeat the process. Make a little hole in the rice cake and thread a piece of string or wool through so you can hang it up! Easy and then birds love them!

We also made up some fat mixture by melting down the lard slightly and mixing it with seed.....

We the took some windfall apples from the school grounds, cut them in half and then scooped out a hollow. We threaded a string through and then packed the hollow with the lard and seed mixture.....

 We were all really pleased with the results and we are sure the birds will be too... we took them home with us to hang in our own gardens...

Critter Tubes

This week, WOW! Club headed down into our field and woodland area, before it got too dark. We are very lucky as we have a large school field, a mature hedgerow running along one side and a lovely small wooded area at the far end. A path runs through it and we have an outside classroom in a clearing, with log seats... it's super!

Our task was to collect a selection of autumn materials to fill a cardboard tube as we were going to make a little home for bugs to hide away in.

We collected leaves, moss, twigs, bits of bark... in fact, all sorts of bits and pieces. We each had our own little bag.

When we got back into school, we laid out a piece of newspaper on the table and tipped out everything we had collected. We each had a big piece of cardboard tube. We used the materials and some straws to create a home for bugs to overwinter. We learnt that we would need to create lots of small nooks and crannies for the bugs to crawl into and hide away, safe from predators.

We spent a while carefully filling our tubes...

and were pretty pleased with the results.. in fact a ladybird decided to move in straight away!!

We places all of our tubes together in a big plastic container and packed some of the spaces with the bits we had left. We are going to stand it up on its edge, so the rain can't get in and place it in the wildlife area.

We finished off the session playing on the iPad2...Ms MacRae had uploaded a new wildlife app called 'Survival' by Arkive. The Arkive website is really good and the app is all about wild animals. In some questions you had to say whether the creatures was a bird, mammal, or fish... others you had to order them according to height or weight.

We all took it in turns to have a go and we loved it!

Before we knew it, it was half past four and time to go home. Another great week at Wildlife Club.