December 2004

We had a vote at Brownies to choose which badge we’d all like to work towards as a pack. Brown Owl suggested we should do one that helped us find out more about the world around us and we had to decide between Environment, Seasons and Wildlife Explorer…

Most of us voted for the wildlife badge – except Genie who wanted to do the environment one because she’s really into recycling. She even collects everyone’s packed lunch rubbish at school and sorts out all the cardboard and tin foil!

Anyway, last week when we arrived at Brownies there was a special visitor waiting for us. Brown Owl said she was from the RSPB – that’s the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds – and she was going to talk to us about all the birds we could see in our gardens.

She started by showing us lots of pictures of common birds that visit our gardens every day and asked us to guess what they were. Everyone recognised the blackbird but there were loads that we didn’t know.

For part of the badge we have to organise a bird watch in our garden and record all the birds that visit in an hour. She told us how to recognise thrushes, starlings, sparrows, blue tits and greenfinches and asked if anyone had spotted any other birds in their gardens.

Rosie said she’d seen a robin. They’re easy to recognise because of their red breasts. And Ella said she’d seen a bright green parrot. The lady said it had probably escaped from someone’s house as tropical birds like that can’t survive in our cold weather.

Then she told us that lots of birds were in danger because trees and hedgerows where they usually nested were being cut down and chemicals used by farmers and gardeners were poisoning them.

She also brought along lots of eggs that people had taken from nests. She said stealing birds’ eggs was a very bad thing to do because it meant the chicks didn’t hatch and the birds would become more and more rare.

Then Sarah got really embarrassed. She said she had an egg at home that she’d found on the path in her garden. It was a lovely blue speckled egg but it had a crack in it. The lady said it had probably fallen out of a nest and it was okay to keep it but you should never take eggs out of a nest, even if there are no birds around. That made Sarah feel a lot better!

The lady also told us that it was a good idea to leave nuts, fruit and seeds out for birds in the winter when the ground was hard or snowy and they couldn’t dig for worms. They also needed water to drink and bathe in and she said an old dustbin lid made a great birdbath.

After the talk everyone was really excited about spotting all the birds we’d talked about. Genie and I decided to do the bird watch in her garden next weekend and we’ve drawn up a chart so we can tick off which ones we see.

If you want to find out more about Brownies and Guides in your local area why not visit their excellent web site:

www.girlguiding.org.uk