Eco-council Blog March

Date: 2nd Mar 2018 @ 6:09pm

New Bird Feeding Table Installed!

Lloyd's Grandad very kindly made Eco-council a bird table for the reception garden area and it was installed this week just in time for the cold snap!  We would like to say a huge thank you to him on behalf of all the children who will enjoy bird spotting and indeed the birds who will enjoy feeding from it! 

Eco-council have been checking the bird table/feeders and we have had a few visitors already!  The children have spotted a few birds throughout the daytime.  Snow may be a slightly bothersome for us, but for tiny garden birds it’s a matter of life and death. Eco-council know from their research that feeding the school's winged visitors is crucial to their survival, and no more so when the weather turns seriously cold. It’s recommended by the RSPB that we put bird feed out twice a day when winter weather turns hostile. But what should we feed them? Birds require fatty and high-energy foods during winter to keep them going. 

Here is a list of food to feed birds when it’s freezing cold:

• Fat (you can buy balls of suet/lard or coconut shells stuffed with this, or make your own ‘fat cake’)
• White or brown rice without added salt (salt is poisonous to small birds)
• Fresh coconut, but not the water (hanging a shell from a tree is very simple)
• Peanuts (make sure you buy from a pet shop or dealer to ensure they don’t contain aflatoxin)
• Uncooked porridge oats. 
• Fresh mealworms or waxworms.
• Black sunflower seeds and nyjer seeds.
• Dried vine fruits.

DON’T feed birds cooking oils or margarine mistaking this for fat. It is very bad for them.

DON’T feed birds milk as they cannot digest it.

DON’T let them eat mouldy or stale foods. 

We have shared an easy-to-follow youtube tutorial for making fat cakes that you could easily make at home.  When the weather gets warmer we are hoping to make a bird bath, if you have any materials you think we could use for this project please let us know.  We have also shared the tutorial we plan to follow when making our bird bath. 

Please keep checking this blog as we will keep you up to date with photographs and news from the Eco-council as it happens each week.  

Tillie, Anya, Rebecca, Ellouise, Harry, Katie, Lloyd and Mischa