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Page Last Updated:
Friday, 3 August 2012
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Home>Council Services>Environment>Gardens for Wildlife (G4W)>KinderGardens for Wildlife>>Milestones>Small Bird Hideout
The population of small birds is decreasing in our urban areas. Many of the larger birds are territorial and are chasing away smaller birds, so they need places to find shelter and food. Dense indigenous shrubs provide havens for small birds that would otherwise be driven out of our playground gardens by the larger more dominant honeyeaters. These plants are particularly attractive for wrens and spinebills when feeding, nesting and fledging their young. To provide adequate safe places for small birds to shelter, you need to plant local native shrubs and trees at various levels- low, medium and high. For more information visit www.knox.vic.gov.au/G4W and www.birdobservers.org.au about the sort of plants to provide for small bird hideouts.
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 | Plant clumps of dense ‘children friendly’ native shrubs for protection from cats. For example, Chef’s Cap Correa | | Small birds such as wrens and spinebills especially love thickets of densely planted shrubs. Children will love to find ‘secret’ places to hide in and make bush cubbies amongst the shrubs too. | | Place a cat safe bird bath close by, for example, hanging from a taller tree | | Providing a nest box can be a reasonable alternative if there are no available hollow trees | | Remember not to provide bird feeders as this tends to create an independence on manufactured food provision
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| Resource Kit Ingredients | |
Teacher's Resources
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| Picture Storybooks including: The Rain Birds | | Songs/songcards with illustrations | | Poetry/rhymes | | Activity: bird nest making using collected natural materials | | Discussion Information Card: The benefits of having small birds in your playground; talk to children about the best place to have a bird bath placed; children can begin to understand their role in creating habitats for birds in their playground, as well as increasing their knowledge about life cycles and survival needs of all animals and plants- even birds need a bath!! | | Cat proof bird bath instructions | | Contact Placemakers on 9758 7399 for assistance in purchasing nest boxes | | Excursions eg: Cranbourne Royal Botanical Gardens www.rbg.vic.gov.au or the Birdsland Environmental Education Centre, 271 Mt.Morton Road, Belgrave South, Phone: 9294 6480, or visit www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au
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| Large puppet eg: Baby bird or birds in a nest hand puppet | | Games | | ‘Discovery Pack’ including binoculars, magnifying glasses, brush, scavenger hunt laminated sheet, clipboard, textas, journal` | | ‘Bird watching in the playground’ journal for children to record drawings of the birds they have seen | | Bird hide construction – suggest use of large octagonal box from green grocers; painted and decorated with leaves, include a hatch door, some windows to view birds with binoculars, green netting over the top as camouflage | | Small Models of birds for sandtray/natural material imaginative play | | Social story: ‘What to do if you find a small bird and/or nest in the playground? | | CD of photo’s, pictures, posters to identify different bird species eg: Common farm land or Wetland birds; Laminated Photo’s of nectar plants for honeyeaters | | CDs of Australian Bird Songs | | Non-fiction resource book eg: Birds of SE Australia set; Australian Guide to Birds
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