Brilliant Birds

Find out about our feathered friends!

Try our fun activities and make a simple bird feeder for your garden.

Our brilliant birds session for primary school aged children provides an insight into what makes our feathered friends special and includes some fun activities for children to try for themselves. 

Before you start: You may want to gather some items to enable your young wildlife enthusiast/s to join in. For the activities on this page, we used: binoculars, bird toys, pipe cleaners, wheat breakfast cereal hoops, wool, pegs.

Top tip: Establish boundaries and let the children go off and see what birds they can spot. They can sit under trees, walk around and listen out for them. Let them explore!

Video: Join our Education Officer Katie at our Brandon Marsh reserve for some fascinating facts about birds and find out how to make a simple bird feeder! If you're inspired to try bird watching at home or school, use our Garden Birds or Wildlife Explorer guides to help identify what you spot!

Play a game

Make a big nest!

Depending on how many sticks/materials there are in the area where the children are playing, they could either make a small nest like the one in Katie's video, on the ground or in a tree, or they could make a nest big enough to fit them all inside!

To make a big nest ask them to go and find a big stick and then stand around in a circle placing the sticks behind them to create the size of the nest. They have to then add sticks to the outside while keeping the middle bit empty. 

Eagle eyes!

• Choose a location to be the eagle’s nest – it could be the nest they made earlier!
• The adult will be the eagle to start with, the rest of the children are mice.
• The eagle will say loudly ‘eagle eyes closing for 30 seconds.’ Then after 30 seconds ‘eagle eyes are opening’. Any mouse spotted by the eagle must come to the nest!
• The mice must slowly make their way towards the nest, each time finding a new hiding place, while the eagle closes its eyes for shorter and shorter bursts.
• When all the mice have been seen the game is over.
• Try it again with one of the children now taking over as the eagle!