Big Garden Birdwatch at Mires Beck
The Big Garden Birdwatch is a chance for you to sit anywhere with your garden bird watch identifier sheet either with the naked eye or using a telescope or binoculars, and count how many of what different types of birds you see. It's such a relaxing, educational activity, that you can do at home in your garden, or in your local greenspace.
Birds originally descended from reptiles. The 'Archaeopteryx' lived 147 million years ago and is known as the earliest bird! Birds back then had long bony tails and teeth!
Did you know that the kingfisher (the picture above) closes its eyes as it dives into the water! It bobs its head before diving to judge the depth!
The RSPB would love to hear how many birds you have seen, and where, to add to their records. Click here to go onto the RSPB website and learn what you can do to take part!
At Mires Beck, we have bird houses for sale, which have been made by our amazing volunteers. The service users will be making wooden bird feeders for early March for our bird feeding stations around the site and for sale in our retail hut. We will also be selling some small bags of bird seed that will be prepared by the service users which can be taken on our woodland walk to the bird feeding station once the site has reopened.
We are hoping to offer some photographic merchandise of our local birds we find at Mires Beck, which include: Robins, Greater Spotted Woodpeckers, Goldfinches, Buzzards, Kingfishers, Starlings, Tree Creepers, and many more.
Also, we are developing the bird feeding station on the woodland walk, so that you can come to Mires Beck and see our many species of birds, including the species mentioned above.
We will be releasing a Mires Beck TV video of 'How to Make a Bird Feeder!' starring Lizzie from our Perennial Team, so to encourage birds into your garden, you could watch Lizzie's video, and fill it with bird seed, lard mixed with seed, or fatballs! (To watch the video, please click on this link and it will be the 6th video on the page.)
Niger seed will attract birds, such as Goldfinches.
Sunflower seeds and peanuts will bring in a load of different species.
Fatballs are energy-rich food for the birds, so putting fatballs out for them in the winter will be a great help to them.
To ensure our service users have the correct and safe tools to make the bird feeders, please donate to our Just Giving page: www.justgiving.com/miresbecknursery.
All projects require fundraising and we are always looking for new sponsors and volunteers to help us realise the future aspirations to maintain the charity and help it to thrive. If you would like to help please contact us.