Holyhead Girl Guides give a helping hand

It has been a pleasure these last few weeks working with the Holyhead Girl Guides to help design a new wildlife garden area at the South Stack Visitor Centre. The girls have been involved with helping design different parts of the garden area and doing lots of research into the different materials used for wildlife gardening. They've been busy drawing up some rather elaborate designs that Kevin McCloud (of grand designs fame) would be proud of. The girls used the rspb Nature's Home and Wildlife Explorer Wingbeat magazines to do research about the best types of habitats for wildlife and tried to incorporate these into designs. Once the girls handed in their designs, we took a little from each idea and collated them together to make one idea. Ultimately we ended up with a design for a pond, a design for a wildlife stack and a design for minibeast logs. We then spent two weeks collecting materials (all recycled goods) Our minibeast logs have been made using leftover plastic tubes from hay baling, heather arisings from our reserve management work, recycled newspapers and donated bamboo from our volunteers. Our pond has been created using recycled wooden planks and donated plants, the only thing we had to buy was the pond lining. Our wildlife stack was made using recycled pallets, reclaimed slate, bricks, heather arisings and grass cuttings and logs. The girls have also been helping paint lots of colourful signs to show people what they have been up to! The girls should be really proud of all their effort and hard work and ultimately helping to give nature a home and inspire people to do the same. Thank you girls!