Apple Bird Feeders

This week we're talking garden birds and environmental stewardship

This year I've had some amazing garden birds including Green Finches, Starlings, Blue Tits, and Great Tits! This is the first year that I've started feeding the birds in my garden and in such a short space of time I was amazed at how many birds my feeders attracted and how diverse they are. It does take some patience, the birds won't arrive immediately they need some time to learn that there is a food source in your garden that they can exploit, but once they find the food they will come back day after day!

Why Feed Garden Birds?

Bird watching is fun and it can be really exciting to see birds start visiting you garden but more important is the role you're playing to care for your local environment. Birds are an essential part of the food chain for larger birds and other predators and have many other important ecological roles, by feeding them - especially in winter when food is scarce, we can help to protect them and other animals. Lots of space that would have been good habitat for birds with lots of food is now taken up by humans, making it harder for birds to find enough to eat. By putting feeders in our gardens we can help to keep birds healthy!

So here's how to make your very own (super simple!) apple bird feeder!

You will need:

• An apple
• Garden Twine
• Scissors
• 2 Sticks
• Sunflower seeds 

First, cut yourself a length of twine about as long as your arm. Maybe longer if you have tiny arms. Then tie the end of the twine to one of the sticks.
Next, make a hole all the way through your apple from top to bottom. I used a screwdriver to do this. Best to let a responsible adult do this. I accidentally poked myself with the screwdriver.

 Next, push the remaining stick all the way through the apple to make two perches.

Finally, completely cover your apple with sunflower seeds by pushing them into the apple. This can take a long time to completely cover the apple but the more seeds you get in there the more food there will be for hungry birds!

You're done! Hang your feeder up a high as you can in a tree or in another high place so that birds can reach it easily.

Check back nest week (haha) for another science experiment or nature tutorial and more terrible puns!

Have a great summer!

Sarah

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This week we're talking conspiracy theories and pigeon milk.

This week I've been inspired by reading about pigeons, which are a lot cooler and more secretive than most people think...
We've all seen pigeons in towns or in our gardens but did you know that pigeons are hiding a secret? Ask anyone where milk comes from and they'll tell you that milk is produced by mammals to feed their babies. Mammals are warm-blooded, furry animals with nipples - which is where their milk comes from. Humans are mammals, cats and dogs are mammals and cows are mammals. We usually think of cows when we think of milk as this is where most of the milk we use every day comes from. BUT this whole time pigeons have been keeping a milky secret from us... PIGEONS MAKE MILK TOO. No joke. You heard it here first. Pigeon milk. Yup. I know what you're thinking, pigeons don't
have nipples. That's true, there are no secret pigeon nipples. Pigeons have an organ called a crop, part of their digestive system that they usually use to store food, however, when pigeons are incubating eggs the crop starts to produce SNEAKY SECRET PIGEON MILK.  So how and why have pigeons kept their milk a secret for so long? Why isn't pigeon milk available in the supermarket? As it turns out this might be for a good reason... Crop milk isn't a liquid like mammalian milk, actually, it isn't much like mammalian milk at all. Crop milk is a thick, fatty substance full of proteins and bird immune cells to make sure chicks grow up big and strong and are able to fight disease - great for baby birds, not so good on cornflakes.




For more about pigeon milk click here
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As always, if you have a burning science question - Tweet it to us!

- Sarah 😀💚🐦