Today's #PoWNatureChallenge is raising awareness of the importance of wetlands, birds and ducks in the UK. Clarence House joined up with the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust who conserve wetlands and protect endangered wildlife. You can read about their aims and projects at:
One aspect of today's task was to share photos 📷, so I posted 4 wetland birds I had photographed a few years back:
The Canada Goose:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLZcwipgRAa/?igshid=y87nq15w9wfr
The Common Coot:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLZdhQ5ALmA/?igshid=uthhqrj0lfth
The Grey Heron:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLZfh98gnZ8/?igshid=1daiafectufqn
The Shoveler:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLZeNZ2Ai2c/?igshid=1atwsl0b12c5o
I then completed the other part of the challenge: creating a 'fantasy duck' while basing it on a real duck. So I took my photo of this Shoveler, and using ink pens and glitter gel pens, created a fantasy bird that isn't that far off the real thing but it's still a fantasy/surreal bird because it's very glittery and I've played with the colours of the real bird. I chose the Shoveler because it is the most endangered (in Britain) of the birds I photographed. Here's my fantasy duck I posted:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLaM2Tkgo83/?igshid=sx5l38zopk6y
I also talked about the importance of inspiring kids to look out for and appreciate wildlife and birds in particular. One way of doing this is for parents to buy garden ornaments and put them out in their outdoor spaces (gardens, patio) or have them as indoor ornaments around the house. I have a variety of bird ornaments e.g. Ducklings, Mallard, Kingfisher. Although birds are quite common wildlife to spot, I don't think children connect with birds very well, compared with other animals, perhaps because birds are small, can fly away and are less popular as pets than cats and dogs. Birds are less approachable, kids can't handle them and stroke them in the way they can furry animals e.g. rabbits, guinea pigs.
I can understand that children want to interact with birds whenever they are around a pond in a park so are tempted to feed the birds white bread 🍞. Unfortunately, this is unhealthy for ducks, geese, swans and wildlife generally. The bread becomes very soggy and clumps in their stomach, giving them a false sense of fullness. This is a problem because bread has zero nutrition for birds and the feeling of fullness can discourage them from seeking other food, so they can become malnourished. Therefore, I think there is a need for children to be better educated about wetland wildlife. By wetland, here I mean generally any stretch of water e.g. lakes, streams, rivers, ponds, canals as well as larger areas of wetland conservation.
So I think this project of helping children understand birds, learn to look out for them, recognise them, listen out for their distinctive birdsongs may help them to start to empathise with birds, appreciating their role in the environment and ecology.
For more on British birds and wetlands, see:
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/habitats/wetlands
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