Bird Cake Making

Nature plays a big part in our lives in our family. We are a pretty 'outdoorsy' family on the whole. Farming, Gardening,Photography, Dog walking and Puddle walks! We are outside a lot.

Its only natural that we would want to care for the environment that we live in , including its inhabitants.

We have a few bird visitors to our garden , and just recently we have noticed an increase in this due to new houses being erected in the village. Hedgerows have sadly been removed to make room for them. Which has meant the birds have lost some of their nesting ground and food sources.

We decided to make some special treats for them- a 'Welcome' sign almost, to encourage them to stay in our garden.

We used sunflower hearts and lard as recommended by various websites and charities. Sunflower hearts appear to be the favourites around here and are not hard to come by. We also used some biodegradable string as the hanger . Once the fat balls/cakes have been eaten- the string should biodegrade and not harm the environment should I miss them in the garden once they fall.

We melted the lard and mixed the sunflower hearts in by hand as you can see from the lovely pictures!

It made a wonderful activity to do with my children , they learnt a lot and asked lots of questions. We have been able to hang them both in our garden and at Little Orchard. So far, we have witnessed Robins, Blue Tits, Coal Tits, Long Tailed Tits and Bull Finches and a pair of very over weight pigeons enjoying their tasty treats !

Next on our list....Hedgehog Snacks!

XxP&TxX