Crieff garden’s wildlife welcome
Kids design some residences for feathered friends
It’s hoped that new residents will soon be setting up home in a well-loved Crieff green space.
Crieff Community Garden has been awarded a grant from Action Earth to install wild habitats at the popular Monteath Street attraction.
Seven bird houses, a hedgehog house, a frog house, five bug hotels and bird feeders were put into the garden this week with the help of local school pupils, pictured above .
It’ s hoped that new residents will soon be setting up home in a wellloved Crieff green space.
Crieff Community Garden has been awarded a grant from Action Earth to install wild habitats at the popular Monteath Street attraction.
Seven bird houses, a hedgehog house, a frog house, five bug hotels and bird feeders were put into the garden this week with the help of local school pupils.
And a competition was held with Crieff Primary School to design bird houses.
A winning design was selected from each year group and these were all painted onto the boxes.
Cat rio na Smith, who spearheaded the movement to bring the community garden back to life, told the Herald: “I guess the idea came about because we were overjoyed to have a resident hedgehog in the garden, which the school children called ‘Spike’ as they saw it so frequently.
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t a good thing that we saw it so much during the day and, sadly, Spike passed.
“We therefore wanted to introduce a hedgehog house so future hedgehogs would have somewhere safe and snug to hibernate.
“This then led to the discussion of how we can encourage other wildlife.”
The Strath capital garden already attracts a variety of insects, birds and mammal, and now it is hoped that its new ‘Bugtropolis’, watertight hideout for hedgehogs and Toad Hall, a welcoming spot for amphibians, will attract even more and also tempt any wildlife passing through to set up home.
Catriona added: “We have lots of bird feeders in the garden so blue tits, bull finches, green finches and sparrows frequent the garden, but we’ve had pheasants, toads, field mice and most recently a woodpecker.
“Action Earth awarded £250 to the garden so we could introduce wild habitats so we’re looking forward to welcoming some new residents.”