Birds of Prey

At the weekend Garden Girl and Garden Boy had a brilliant time scattering grass seed over the large bare patch of lawn. For once they did not need to be precise about where they put the seeds. They could just throw handfuls of them wherever they wanted and they loved it.

And then they were able to see their bird scarers erected, to keep the wood pigeons away. They are so proud of their birds of prey. Garden Boy has been telling eveyone how he made it and he looks out of the window regularly, to check that the big fake birds are doing their job. And so far, they are. Only once have we spotted a brave wood pigeon eating our grass seed but all our Little Garden Helpers banged on the window and it seems to have stayed away since.

If you want to make a bird of prey as well, this is how we did it.

1) Rip up an old piece of material into long strips. We used an old shower curtain.

2) Take two coat hangers and tie three pieces of rag onto each one. Our Little Garden Helpers loved doing this as they were learning how to tie knots and it was easier for them with large pieces of material.

3) Use another strip of rag to tie the two coat hangers together, leaving some rag trailing to act as tail feathers.

4) Draw eyes onto an old CD and make a beak shape using a yellow pipe cleaner. This can be attached by winding the ends around the CD.

5) Tie the CD in the middle of your wings to make your birds head.

6) Attach to some sticks and put in the garden. The large flapping wings will hopefully look like a bird of prey to smaller birds who will fly away scared, with the shiny CD acting as an additional warning to the braver birds.