STEPHANIE Davidson from Gardens For Wildlife Ballarat will be sharing how to attract small birds into gardens at Ballarat Green Drinks this month.<\/p>\n
Ballarat Green Drinks is an event held the third Thursday of every month from 6.30pm at Bunch of Grapes Hotel.<\/p>\n
Run by BREAZE, each evening involves sharing dinner and listening to a talk from an expert about the environment.<\/p>\n
Ms Davidson\u2019s session on Thursday 17 August will look at how to create a garden haven for little birds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been quite interested in plants, the bush and environmental things,\u201d she said. \u201cI joined a Landcare group about 20 years ago and I loved it a lot more than I thought I would.<\/p>\n
\u201cGardens For Wildlife was an extension of those interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
Previous talks by Gardens For Wildlife have been more broad, however, this talk will have a focus on attracting small birds into gardens.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough doing our garden visits a common response is \u2018I want a lot more little birds in my garden\u2019,\u201d said Ms Davidson.<\/p>\n
The common methods people may try to attract smaller birds often do not have the desired effect.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople often when trying to attract wildlife plant things with big showy flowers because they know instructively native plants are good,\u201d said Ms Davidson.<\/p>\n
\u201cInadvertently that attracts bigger birds like magpies and kookaburras so if you want little birds in your garden there are different sorts of plants you should plant and I will be talking about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is hoped the session will lead to more safe areas for little birds to live in an increasingly urbanised environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of Australian native birds are declining in numbers across the whole country,\u201d said Ms Davidson.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we continue to develop land we\u2019re just sort of gradually losing more and more of the resources that small birds need.\u201d<\/p>\n