It's time for Flatford Wildlife Garden to open its gates full time for the season! From Friday 31st March, the garden will be open every day until 31st October, from 10:30-4:30. You will be able to see our new nest box cameras, which should hopefully see plenty of action over the next few weeks.
The spring season kicks off with a children's trail for the Easter holidays called Whose Nest? Children will be able to find the nest images around the garden and work out who lives in which, before coming back to the barn to make their own nest (complete with mini eggs!) The cost is £2 for both activities, with no need to book. It will run from 1st-16th April.
Here in the UK, we can find quite a few different forms of bird nests, including burrow nests (such as made by a puffin), scrape nests (where ground nesting birds such as oystercatchers simply dig away a depression in the soil or sand) and cavity nests (where birds like woodpeckers use a cavity in a tree, building or even telegraph pole to nest).
In our gardens, the most common nest form is the cupped nest. The three main attributes of the cupped nest are cushioning, shelter and camouflage. The outside is woven from pliable materials, usually grass, twigs and moss. Different species line their cupped nests with different materials, including hair (eg robins), grass (eg blackbirds), feathers (eg greenfinches) or even dried mud (eg song thrushes).
Another form of nest is the platform nest. These can be found in our gardens in the form of woodpigeon nests. These aren't elaborate constructions, consisting of a simple platform put together from a rough arrangement of sticks. These can look rather precarious, but the woodpigeons somehow manage to lay, incubate and protect their (nearly always) two eggs on their rickety platforms!
A whole lot more elaborate and intricate than a woodpigeon nest, the long tailed tit nest is spherical in form, constructed from moss, lichens and spider-webs. The soft lining is made exclusively from feathers and it is thought that a single nest can contain well over 1000 individual feathers! These amazing structures can take the female and the male up to 3 weeks to build and provide excellent camouflage. As the chicks hatch and grow, the spider silk within the nest structure stretches to accommodate them. The nests are often found in dense vegetation, such as hedges and brambles, so gardens with wild, overgrown areas are much more likely to attract breeding long tailed tits.
Long tailed tit Aegithalos caudatus, adult sitting in nest after adding nesting material
Ben Andrew (rspb-images.com)
Don't forget that it is an offence to disturb nesting birds under the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981. The breeding season is March to August, although some nesting can take place at other times. As well as leaving nests or birdboxes well alone during this period, we should also avoid hedge cutting as many of our garden birds hide their nests well inside hedges.
We look forward to seeing you at Flatford Wildlife Garden for some nest-related fun over the school holidays! There is also an Easter adventure morning at the garden - full details can be found at https://events.rspb.org.uk/events/33472. We will be leaf printing on to fabric to make bunny flags. You can have a play in our mud kitchen and build a den. Which Easter character will you create out of clay? Plant some cosmos seeds to grow at home that feed hungry bees and butterflies. Toast marshmallows over the campfire to make a delicious smore. We hope to see you there!