Emily, our Nextdoor Nature Officer, has been supporting staff and patients at Pinhoe View Hospital in Exeter to grow their ideas for the ward gardens and help make them spaces for hope and wildlife, including making bird feeders from scratch using willow and a fat ball mixture. They're looking forward to seeing what birds visit!
Wilder Diaries: Creating space for wildlife and hope
Emily, our Nextdoor Nature Officer, has been supporting staff and patients at Pinhoe View Hospital to create a wildlife haven in their ward gardens!
Leaving food out for birds is a great way to encourage more to visit your community space, and it can be particularly lifesaving during the winter months where food is scarce. It's easy to supplement naturally available food with bird food, and there are a number of ways to provide the food whether you buy a traditional feeder or craft your own - like the willow feeders crafted by Pinhoe View Hospital! However you decide to provide food for your local birds, make sure you keep feeders clean to prevent the spread of disease, and play your feeders out of reach of local predators.
Find out more about feeding birds in your community space here:
Emily also helped the patients and staff at the hospital to make bee and bug hotels which will sit in the ward gardens alongside the willow bird feeders they recently made. These 'hotels' will provide safe spaces for insects to live, breed, and hide from predators and bad weather. With 41% of our insect species facing extinction, it's important that we do our bit to help them thrive in our communities.
Find more ways to help your local insects here: