Make a butterfly feeder
In the last post Kate told us all about her favourite butterfly. In this post I will be showing you how to make your own butterfly feeder, from items you might commonly have at home, to help attract butterflies, and other insects, to your outside space. I had to raid my recycling bin for key materials.
Here are the same instructions on how to make a butterfly feeder, as can be seen in the video:
What you will need:
- Cardboard
- Coloured pens or paints
- String or wool
- Glue or sticky tape
- Scissors
- Bottle top
- Hole Punch
- Take a piece of cardboard and draw a flower with five petals, roughly 20cm wide.
- Decorate your flower in any way you wish.
- Cut out your flower.
- Fix the bottle top to the middle of your flower using glue or sticky tape.
- Use a hole punch to make a hole at the edge of each petal of your flower.
- Cut five pieces of string or wool, each roughly 40cm long.
- Tie the five pieces of string together at one end.
- Turn your flower over and thread a piece of string through each hole, and tie the five pieces of string together.
- Tie an additional piece of string, or wool, to the knot.
- Hang your butterfly feeder in a sunny, but sheltered, spot outside.
- Mix together sugar and water, or take a small piece of overripe fruit (e.g. orange or banana), and put it in the bottle lid.
Watch to see any butterflies, or other insects, that visit your feeder. You could investigate which foods different species prefer.
Please tell us about your butterfly feeders and investigations. We would love to see photos of them. Contact us or email at hopelearning@oum.ox.ac.uk.
Crunchy on the outside 