Friday's session was with the research participants and emerged from an ongoing interest of animals living in the preschool garden. Visual resources were taken from Biodiversity Ireland (http://www.biodiversityireland.ie/) and a story Robby the Christmas Robin is not in a Christmas mood ! by Dale Treadwill from (http://www.naturallywild.ie/).
The story telling took place indoors, where the children were invited to hear a story about a little robin who was not keen to share his food with his friends. Following the story telling it was envisaged the session would extend to an invitation to make bird feeders, however what transpired was a story from the young participants themselves and their own perspectives and interests of birds, eating apples, names and much more in between. We made the bird feeders from apples (we also ate some !) which we covered with peanut butter (suet can also be used) and rolled them in a mixture of birdseed (black sunflower seeds, kibbled maize, yellow millet, pinhead oats, flaked maize, oystershell grit, kibbled peanuts and kibbled sunflower hearts). The participants then decided to bring the feeders home or keep them at preschool to hang in the garden for our little feathered friends. For more information on supporting our young bird carers' interests, check out https://birdwatchireland.ie/ who are currently on the look out for help to count garden birds this Winter !
