Helping the birds in cold weather

We put some bird seed balls in the garden. We hung them in the trees. Can you see the round bird seed ball in the tree?

We gave the birds some fresh fruit to eat.

We hung the fruit in the trees with the bird seed cake so that when the birds are feeding the cats can not catch them.

Ahmad and Aminio put their apples on to a piece of string and tied them in the trees. The birds started to eat them very quickly. Lots of waxeyes (white-eyes) came to peck at the fruit.

Adam made a hole through the middle of his apple and took out the apple core which he put in the bird seed cake. He threaded string through the hole so that he could hang the apple in the trees for the birds to eat.

Sara used the apple corer to take the core out of the apple. Our teacher used the vegetable knife to peel a little of the apple skin off the apple so that the birds could easily peck it.

We all had a turn at making a hole in the

apples and pears. We used an apple corer to make the hole and our teacher used a vegetable knife to cut some skin off the apple so that the birds

could peck it.

We learned many new words today. Here are some of them:

core, corer, dripping (fat) wax-eye, bellbird, sparrow, chaffinch, string,

to tie, to hang, to peck, to thread, to flutter their wings, feathers.

We have a lovely book which helps us to identify the birds that come to our feeding area. It is called "City Birds - A Dunedin Field Guide". It is written by Sue Michelsen-Heath and Ilka Sohle with photography by Stephen Jaquiery. It is published by the Otago Daily Times, 2005.