Wild Garden Project

Wildlife Garden Project - Summer 2016

The next installment for my wildlife garden project, I decided to use an old soda bottle that I had lying around, I cut a hole in the cap and threaded a piece of string to knot around a tree branch to hang the feeder above ground.

I used a pair of scissors to cut 2 holes 1/3 of the way up the bottle, 1 on each side which I then pushed a pencil through, I then cut an extra hole either side about 2cm above the first holes for the birds to peck at the seed. So far I have seen a few sparrows use my new feeder but I hope to capture footage of this to add into my Wildlife Garden Project official film.

Here is what the feeder looks like so far:

2 Litre Lemonade Bottle - Pencil and Shoe Lace

The second idea that I had was to create a sand bath for the birds which would be placed underneath the feeders which are hanging from the tree. I created this by filling a medium sized mixing bowl full of sand, I am monitoring this station using a GoPro which is fixed around one of the tree branches, camera has been positioned to look downwards on the bowl.

Here is what the sand bath looks like:

Mixing bowl filled with sand - placed a fat block in the middle to attract the birds

Wild Garden Project - Summer 2016

Creating a Wildlife Pond - Summer 2016

For my next project, I created a wildlife pond to attract small mammals, amphibians like newts, frogs, pond skaters as well as butterflies and dragonflies. I found myself a suitable site at the top of the garden which was surrounded by bushes and shrubbery, I used granite blocks to level out the ground for the base of my wooden barrel to sit on and then filled it up with water.

I wanted to create a box to surround the barrel where I could place plants in either corner to make it look more natural, I did this by cutting 3x27inch lengths of wood which I nailed together with other planks to create my box which I then placed around the barrel. I then filled in the rest of the box with anything I could find around the garden to block up the corner holes, I applied compost and earth to fill in the holes and plant lots of flora. 

The final addition was to add a walkway along the front for small Amphibians, Mammals etc. to walk up to the raised pond. This was wrapped and pinned in astro turf to make it look a lot more natural, I positioned old logs, seeds, ornaments and plant pots around the side of the pond.

Sawing wooden planks to make the box for the Pond

Adding the compost, plants, logs and front walkway

Decorating the top of the pond with moss, rocks, ornaments and pond weeds

Wildlife Pond - Installing the Go-Pro Camera

I created a small housing using a block of wood which I nailed to the back corner post of the box and I created a roof using a cut off from one of the planks which were used on the side.