Bird of the Day - Blackbird

5 children from Class 6 joined me for birdwatching club this week. The first thing we noticed was that our goldfinch feeder was half empty and the new seed feeder was completely empty!  So the birds have definitely been visiting and enjoying our food. During a quick walk around the school grounds we spotted:

4 blackbirds rummaging in leaves on the ground
1 robin singing
30 pigeons overhead

The children did very well at spotting the different colours on the male blackbird and chose him as the best Bird of the Day!

Can you spot his bright orange beak and circle round his eye?

Until next time

Mrs Longmoor

PS we will be thinking about feeding the birds this friday and have a very exciting announcement to make, keep checking the blog for more details

Top Trumps Prize!

A great piece of news - Tomas in Class 6 has won 20 packs of Top Trumps cards for school by entering a competition in The Pod's e-zine. The Pod website is the place to find out about eco-schools and the e-zine has loads of great info and competitions for kids. Here is a link to the latest edition....enjoy!
http://cream.ceros.com/pod/pod10/page/1

Parklands Bug Hotel Open for Business

which bugs can you spot?

Our bug hotel in the wildlife garden is already attracting plenty of visitors with the children telling me they have seen lots of spiders and other creepy crawlies which is great news. To finish the hotel off properly we decided to make a sign to commemorate the brilliant work done on green day last year.

 Well done to the children who spotted all the different backgrounds for each creature and some even used the word 'habitat' to describe what the sign was designed to show - what a clever bunch! Hope you like it.

Mrs Longmoor

And the winner is......

Congratulations to all our finalists in the Wildlife Photography competition - all the photos were superb and it was a difficult choice.

I am pleased to announce that the winning photograph was Fat Spider by Oscar, 2nd place was Painted Lady by Luke and 3rd place was Red Deer by Eli.

Here are our three very proud and happy snappers with their eco-prizes of a nature colouring book.

Well done and thank you to everyone who took part in our competition.

Mrs Longmoor

Wildlife Photo Competition - The Finalists

Thanks to everyone who entered the wildlife photography competition - the pictures were all amazing so well done. The eco-team has now selected the 10 photos for the final vote and here they are.....


1. Hawk Moth

 

2. House Martin Nest



3. Painted Lady Butterfly


 

4. Fat Spider



5. Robin in Bird Bath

 

6. Bees on a flower



7. Fallow Deer



8. Slimy Snail



9. White Flowers



10. Red Deer


Now it's over to you all to vote for your favourites!  Please email your choice to parklandsecoteam@hotmail.co.uk by Monday 24th September. All Parklands children will have a chance to vote in school and the winner will be announced in assembly. I think you'll agree it's a very tough choice!

And finally, the eco-team would like to give a special commendation to this amazing photo of an iguana sent in by one of our Year 1 pupils. Unfortunately, the photo can not go into the final as it is a captive animal and the competition was specifically for wildlife but it is such a beautiful photo we wanted to share it with you - I think we have a budding photographer on our hands here!

Thanks again to all our little snappers and good luck!
Mrs Longmoor

Wildlife Photography Competition

The Parklands Eco-Team are holding a wildlife photography competition for the whole school as part of our work to increase awareness of biodiversity. The summer holidays are a great chance to get out and about so please take your digital cameras and phones with you! The photos can be of any subject – birds, bugs, butterflies and beasties, plants and flowers, fungi or just a natural landscape but no pets or farm animals please – keep it wild! (Maximum 5 entries per pupil).

All photographs should be sent by email to parklandsecoteam@hotmail.co.uk by Monday 17^th September. Please include name and class as well as a brief description. The Eco-Team will select a shortlist of 10 pictures which will be uploaded to the blog http://www.parklandsecoblog.blogspot.co.uk/ and you will all have 1 week to vote for your favourite. The 3 photographers with the most votes will win an eco-related prize and the 10 finalists will all have their photographs displayed in school.

Some lovely mosses, lichens and fungi to inspire you

Butterfly Spotted!



Holly Blue


During a brief spell of sunshine yesterday, I actually spotted a butterfly!  It was a Holly Blue.  As the name suggests, it lays its eggs on holly and ivy plants.  Our poor butterflies have been suffering this summer as they can't fly around in wet weather so it felt very special to see this pretty little thing fluttering around our new butterfly border.

Mrs Golding