30 Days Wild: Day 12

Having a dust bath

I had to plan day 12 of 30 Days Wild yesterday, as I am suffering from really bad hayfever this week. I always get it, but it's so bad this week that I'm having to limit my outdoor time to around 30 minutes. This makes it very difficult to go further than my garden.

A few years ago, we noticed the sparrows taking a dust bath in the dry soil at the top of the back garden. I did a little bit of research and found that they do this to maintain their plumage. I also learned that they like to do this in the sand where it available. So one trip to the timber yard and about 10 minutes later, et voila! One purpose built dust bath for the birds! They love it!

Over the last week or so though, the blackbirds have been digging up everything they can - including the primroses around it (which has pretty much killed them off... GRRRR!) Because of the ASBO birds, the dust bath was not fit for purpose. There were bits of bark, twigs, and large (for the sparrows anyway) stones. It needed a bit of a tidy up. I got a plant pot with small holes in the bottom, a bucket, and my trowel and set to work sieving the sand.

This took ages! It's quite deep so the sparrows can really flap out a little hollow for themselves. All in all, it took me about 45 minutes to do! (As an aside, this was way longer than I can manage comfortably and by the time I got back inside, I could barely see.) Afterwards, there with some tiny stones left but the sparrows don't seem to mind those.

My only concern now is how long it will last before the blackbirds bugger it up again!

You can read all of my 30 Days Wild posts here!