1. Explore!
Biodiversity is everywhere – it includes you and every living thing around you. So whether you live in the heart of the city or in the middle of the countryside, start looking for the variety of life on your doorstep today. You’ll be amazed how much there is to see.
2. Make some feathered friends
No matter where you live, in a flat or surrounded by fields, you can help our feathered friends by putting up bird boxes or bird tables during the cold winter months. Just make sure you put out the right kind of food and you should have all kinds of grateful visitors. And as a good friend should, get to know their names!
3. Go wild in the garden
Whether you’ve got acres or just a window box, you could create your very own wildflower ‘meadow’ to help keep local species thriving. Wildflower gardens help support other local wildlife as well as giving you a wonderful, colourful garden to enjoy!
4. Make a splash
Creating a wildlife pond in your garden can bring stunning dragonflies, and bathing birds to your back yard and create a whole underwater world for frogs, newts and diving beetles. You could line half a barrel with polythene, add some watery plants and wait to see who moves in!
5. Put your rubbish to work
Turn your muck into magic for the garden by starting a compost heap. You’ll save money on fertiliser for your garden and create a warm, safe place for lots of small animals – maybe even hedgehogs if you’re lucky. It doesn’t have to be huge to make a difference and it could really boost your garden’s performance too.
6. Get your hands dirty
If you want a bigger challenge than planting flowers in your own garden, sign up as a volunteer with one of the many conservation organisations in Northern Ireland. You could plant trees, wildflowers and get to know some of our native species just that little bit better – all with the added advantage of having some fun.
7. Invite some new neighbours in
With some of their natural habitats in decline, bats and hedgehogs could do with your help to find suitable homes. You can help by sharing a little bit of your home with them – put up a bat box or set up hibernating hedgehog homes in your garden. You never know who you’ll see from the breakfast table!
8. Sign up
Becoming a member of any one of Northern Ireland’s many active conservation organisations won’t cost you very much and it will help you learn more about our local biodiversity.
9. Take some local action
Find out what’s going on in your area – a number of Local Biodiversity Action Plans are currently being developed by District Councils across Northern Ireland. You could find you’re living near a nature reserve or an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty or even the homes of some of our most threatened birds, animals and plants. No matter where you live, there will be ways in which you can make a difference!
10. Discover new life with iSpot
Look out for a bird, plant or other wildlife that you don’t recognise, and get help with identifying it on iSpot.org.uk. iSpot is a friendly website where beginners and experts help each other learn about the wildlife that is all around us. Go to http://www.ispot.org.uk/ to find out more.
