Big Bosinver Birdwatch – encouraging young guests to watch wildlife


Scenic view of fields, hills and tors in Cornwall. A small town can be seen in the distance.

With a good mixture of habitats on our farm we are lucky to have a lovely variety of wildlife at Bosinver, but the most evident all year round are the birds – from buzzards mewing as they soar above the fields, to swallows nesting in the barn and Canada geese on the lake.

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Most easily spotted are the multitude of ‘garden’ (or more accurately woodland) birds such as great tits, blue tits, sparrows, chaffinches, goldfinches and robins which enjoy our 30 acres of woodland and mature gardens. It is wonderful to stop and take a moment to listen to them all singing first thing in the morning at Bosinver….

This year, as well as planting more bee and bird friendly wildflowers, we have introduced the Big Bosinver Birdwatch – an initiative to encourage guests, particularly children, to start taking an interest in the multitude of bird species which can be found around the farm.

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Every Sunday after animal feeding Farmer Dave offers young guests the opportunity to borrow a bird feeder so they can watch them from the comfort of their cottage and have a go at identifying the birds seen. We have provided each cottage with its own copy of the RSPB’s Birdwatching for Beginners – a great little book which contains lots of tips to make identification easy.

We give out prizes every week for Champion Spotter and best photo or drawing and if any help is needed with identification, keen birdwatcher and Marketing Officer Elaine Drury is on hand to help.

We have had some great spots so far including coal tits and woodpeckers and we have also received some lovely drawings – here’s one of a blue tit by Holly aged 6. As you can see below we have even had the odd unusual sighting – like this lesser spotted penguin on one of our feeders! Great fun!

“The response to our Big Bosinver Birdwatch initiative has been fantastic,” says Elaine. “It’s wonderful to know that we might be igniting the spark of a love for nature – something, which as keen birdwatchers ourselves, we know can last a lifetime. We hope that by learning about birds during their stay our young guests and their families will be inspired to feed and take care of the birds in their own gardens and maybe even explore their local nature reserves.”

Useful information

The RSPB have some wonderful resources for learning all about birds and places to see them

They even have some great suggestions for ways in which you can help nature on their Give Nature A Home webpages

If you’d like to learn more about wildlife then take a look at the Wildlife Trusts website – they have lots of great reserves to visit and local events to join in with.

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Are you ready to go wild this June?

If you enjoy being outdoors and would like to bring nature into your lifeits not too late to join in with the Wildlife Trusts’ 30 Days Wild challenge – an invitation to commit random acts of wildness throughout June (and hopefully beyond!) Here are 101 ideas to inspire you . Head over to the 30 Days Wild website to find out how to get involved, and and follow #30DaysWild on Twitter for more inspiration for random acts of wildness.

You can also follow how we’re getting on with the challenge on Facebook, Twitter and our blog.

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Action Nan and the rest of the team are always busy writing posts that we think you’ll like – from top tips on where to take the kids, to what’s likely to be going on in the local area when you stay – we’ve got it all in our blog!