June, 2011

Let Danny Green bring a shimmer to this Monday morning with his amazing photo of a golden-ringed dragonfly, studded with dewdrops.

Want this for your wall? Head over to RSPB Images where you can browse thousands more gorgeous photos.

Give your garden wildlife a treat this weekend by recycling some rubbish into a wildlife hotel.

Also known as a wildlife stack, a wildlife hotel imitates the natural, dark, shady nooks and crannies that garden wildlife needs. By piling up your old cardboard, drinking straws, bricks, stones, straw, hay and lots more, you can create a luxury hotel for your wild visitors.

You can find all the information you need to build a wildlife stack on our website.

It's a great activity for everyone. Kids can get involved and you can build your hotel in whatever style you choose - get creative and have fun!

The best part is, your wildlife stack will bring in insects, frogs, toads and hedgehogs, so it's a great way to see and enjoy wildlife on your doorstep.

Building a wildlife stack is a fun way to step up for nature - and it's free. It's a perfect weekend activity, so enjoy yourselves!

Don't forget, if you love gardening, you can get loads of gardening tips on our Homes for Wildlife blog.

If you decide to build a rubbish hotel, let us know how you get on by joining the community and leaving a comment below.

This morning, we introduce to you a bird that clearly laughs in the face of authority....or, maybe it's just that Arctic terns can't read!

You'll find this image by David Norton, plus lots of other great wildlife shots on RSPB Images.

This weekend the days are long so there is more time to make the most of them - and we can help!

Many of our nature reserves have fun events organised this weekend - we'd love to see you. Everyone is wellcome - you don't have to be a nature expert. We'll show you the best bits of summer and help you get close to some fantastic wildlife. You can enjoy walks looking for glow worms, bee orchids, nightjars or owls. If walking is not your thing, there are also craft events, pond-dipping sessions and close-up views of woodpeckers, peregrines and avocets to enjoy. Just visit our events pages to find out what's happening near you.

Look out for swifts

Swifts are here for the summer until about August, when they will fly all the way to Africa for the winter. If you see swifts when you're out and about this weekend, we'd like to hear about it. Our new swift survey is quick and easy to do, and it's a great way to help swifts - a species that has suffered in the last decade and we need to find out why.

Five reasons why swifts are simply the best

1. When they leave the nest, swifts can fly for up to three years before they touch down again.
2. Swifts eat, mate and even sleep in the air.
3. Swifts drink raindrops.
4. Swifts catch insects in their wide mouths and store them in a pouch at the back of their throat. They use saliva to bind these insects into a ball - there can be thousands of insects in one ball. They either deliver the food ball to their nest or swallow it and start again.
5. Swifts pair for life, meeting their partner at the same nest site each spring. Aw!

When baby birds leave the nest, they are called fledglings. A fledgling is the equivalent of a teenager. They are too big and gangly to stay at home, they’re keen to see the world and their parents are fed up with constantly feeding them. But how do you leave home when you hatched out on a cliff, in a pitch-black burrow or just a long way up from the ground?

Guillemots
Chicks leave the nest after only three weeks. Unfortunately the only exit route takes a huge amount of courage. Guillemot chicks are called jumplings, as they have to throw themselves off the cliff edge where they were born into the sea below. If they don’t, they are at risk of being plucked off the cliff and eaten by a hungry herring gull.
You can watch a video of jumplings taking the plunge on the BBC website.

Goldeneyes
You better hope you’re not afraid of heights if you're a goldeneye duckling. Goldeneyes make their nests in holes or nestboxes in trees, high off the ground. So when it comes to leaving home, the tiny ducklings have to leap out of the tree, down onto the ground below, where they use their little legs to follow Mum to water. You can watch a video of these gorgeous balls of fluff shooting out of a high nestbox and you can read an account of goldeneye ducklings pinging out of their nestbox 'like popcorn' this week at our Abernethy nature reserve.

Puffins
Puffins lay one egg in underground burrows. Once the chick hatches out, it stays in this dark sanctuary for about seven weeks, being waited on by its parents, who deliver high-protein fish meals. Because it’s so dark, the parents and their chick never get to see each other. Eventually the parents get fed up and abandon the ‘teenage’ puffin. The hungry fledgling has to leave the burrow on its own, at night. The little bird then makes its way to the sea.

Swifts
Before swift chicks leave the nest, they do a few flaps and wing stretches to get used to the idea, before launching themselves into the air. They are as good at flying as their parents from the first moment they take off, and once they set off on that first flight there’s no looking back. In fact, as soon as their minute legs have left the nest, they won’t touch down again for two years! They spend all their time in the air. Swifts eat, mate and even sleep in flight.

Find out more about this topic and what to do if you find chicks in your garden from our website.