HOW YOU CAN HELP WILDLIFE

Your step-by-step guide to making edible holiday ornaments for birds.

With food, water and shelter scarce over the winter months, give your garden birds a high-energy treat with edible holiday ornaments. Winter is a tricky time for our feathered friends, food becomes increasingly difficult to find naturally, so lend a hand and supplement nutrients to help birds maintain their fat reserves. You may even get up close and personal to a species you haven’t seen before!

Keep birdfeeders and bird baths clean to prevent any diseases. Keep bird food, like your new ornaments, topped up over the winter months – a constant supply will bring a steady stream of happy visitors!

Blue tit photo: Mark Hamblin/2020VISION

What will you need: • Festive cookie cutters • screwdriver • biodegradable string • 250g suet or lard (This should make up to 10 bird treats). • 2 ½ cups of local birdseed mix

Start Step 1 Step 2 Lay some greaseproof paper Mix your birdseed together with your on a baking tray, then press the suet or lard, which has been left to mixture into a compact layer, soften at room temperature and cut it around an inch thick. into chunks in your mixing bowl until it forms a thick ‘dough’.

Step 3

Using your cookie cutters, press into the mix to form festive shapes, alternatively, use your hands to shape the ‘dough’ if you don’t have any cutters. Collect excess mix and repeat step two until all the mix is used up.

Step 4

Use the screwdriver to place a hole in the middle of each ornament.

Step 5

Leave ornaments to dry overnight in the fridge or freezer until firm, then hang them out using your string.

If you make your own festive creations, we’d love to see them, send your pictures to magazine@essexwt.org.uk.

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Earlier this year, the Trust launched Tendring Loves Conservation, a two year National Lottery Heritage Fund project led by Essex Wildlife Trust, working in partnership with the University of Essex. The project allows a comprehensive programme of engagement in the region and community-led site improvements aimed to connect local people to the natural world and encourage pride in place in the area.

Tendring L ves Conservation

“Tendring is bountiful in natural beauty and we want to encourage as many people to experience it and benefit from it as we can. Everyone should feel confident in exploring their local green spaces, and we can’t wait to help more people in the community be able to enjoy it.”

Judith Metcalfe, Education & Community Officer at Essex Wildlife Trust, who is one of the project leads for Tendring Loves Conservation

Essex Wildlife Trust is working to support groups of children, parents, schools and adults that are least likely to have access to nature and give them the tools and support they need to feel connected with their local environment. We have started outdoor learning programmes including Nature Babies, Nature Tots, Nature Clubs, Forest School training and Greening the School Grounds initiatives.

So far, our work has led to 330 interactions with children aged 18 months to 5 years who have been able to spend regular time on one of our nature reserves, engaging in nature based play and exploration, and we have been holding weekly outdoor after school clubs.

11 primary schools across Tendring including schools from Harwich, Clacton and Manningtree have signed up to take part. Working with these schools, we are training staff in how to use and adapt their school grounds for outdoor learning, and giving staff members opportunities for free Forest School training that they will be able to lead on beyond the end of the project. The school grounds are being improved for wildlife and outdoor learning so that the children can spend more time outside in a rich and varied environment. We have also been able to start running off-site visits, including school trips to The Naze Nature Discovery Centre and surrounding coastline. Many of these children had never left their local area before, so this has been a real treat to help them explore the wonders of the natural world and diversity of habitats in Tendring.

We are working in partnership with the University of Essex to measure the impact that spending time in nature can have on your wellbeing and how repeated visits can develop your sense of nature connectedness. Attendees to sessions have been completing a questionnaire which is feeding into the University’s evaluation work, that will help measure the impacts of the project.

Photo: Adrian Clarke

“We are delighted to be working with Essex Wildlife Trust to evaluate the impact of their Tendring Loves Conservation project on

engagement and connection to nature

within the local community, and exploring the health benefits of the range of nature-based activities being provided to local residents.”

Dr Carly Wood, Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Science at University of Essex

Several of our nature reserves within Tendring play a key part in the project: Wrabness nature reserve near Manningtree, The Naze Nature Discovery Centre and John Weston nature reserve at Waltonon-the-Naze and Great Holland Pits nature reserve in Great Holland. Conservation focused activities are forming part of the programme and monthly adult work parties are being held from this autumn to help improve these sites for wildlife, forming a local oasis for the community.

In Great Holland, at Great Holland Pits nature reserve, we have already completed 310m of footpath repairs and we have created a 250m footpath that will create a circular community trail, to protect habitats while enabling year-round community access. We have reprofiled the pond to enhance it for wildlife and installed an accessible dipping platform created from recycled plastic. We have also created a south-facing bank for the benefit of invertebrates who will bask on and burrow in the sandy substrate.

At Wrabness nature reserve we are about to improve 460m of tracks and paths, while creating a 250m accessible track that will create a circular community trail. We are installing interpretation boards and signage at each of the sites, and will have engaging and informative information at key points throughout the nature reserves.

This inspirational project received £250,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and will run for two years, until March 2023, however the programme will establish activities, relationships and behaviours that will continue long after the project ends.

Thanks to National Lottery players

Photo: Getty Images

Photo: Adrian Clarke Wrabness nature reserve

Anne Jenkins, Director Midlands and East, National Lottery Heritage Fund

“Landscapes and nature form the bedrock of our culture and heritage, improving wellbeing, sparking curiosity, and protecting and providing for the community’s surrounding and inhabiting them. National Lottery players have highlighted natural heritage as especially important, which is why we are proud to award Essex Wildlife Trust and Tendring Loves Conservation, highlighting the value of nature to all our daily lives.”