Easter fun for Bird Lovers

Here are some fun ways to celebrate easter - for children and young at heart of any age!

Create an Easter Egg Hunt

Nothing says childhood like an easter egg hunt around the garden! Hide small easter aggs around the garden in a range of places depending on the age of the children who will be hunting. For older children, you can create a treasure hunt with mysterious clues, and hide a few tiny eggs with each clue, then have the largest eggs at the end for a triumphant finale!

Make pretty Dyed Eggs

the tradition of egg decorating is thousands of years old, beginning in Persia as part of the spring equinox New Year Nowruz celebration, and becoming widespread across Europe where the tradition took on Christian symbolism connected with Easter.

Dying eggs with food colouring is fast and easy; but you can also experiment with natural dyes by extracting colour from fruits, vegetables and spices. Organic, rustic hues can be created by using yellow onion skins, turmeric, paprika, beetroot skins, purple cabbage, red onion skins, blueberries or blackberries or spinach and kale leaves. The process is easy:

1. Boil the eggs and leave to chill
2. Combine 2 cups of water and 2 Tbsp of white vinegar in a medium pot. Bring to a boil.
3. Add the dye ingredients needed to create the desired colour and simmer for 30 minutes.
4. Allow to cool and then strain the liquid to remove organic matter 
5. Leave each egg to rest for 30 minutes in the dye until it has reached the intended colour
6. Remove with tongs and pat the egg dry with a paper towel

These subtly-coloured eggs can be made into an autumnal Easter-themed centrepiece or display.

Make a naked egg with this clever experiment

This is a classic, simple science experiment that results in a shell-less, rubbery-feeling egg. All you need is a jar, some white vinegar and a raw egg. 

Instructions:

1. Place an egg in the jar and cover it with white vinegar (you could colour the vinegar too while you’re at it for some rainbow fun)
2. Watch as bubbles start to form on the shell - this is a reaction caused by the vinegar reacting with calcium carbonate. It is releasing carbon dioxide!
3. After 48 hours remove the egg and rinse it off.

Then you can explore your shell-less egg. Can you see through it? Does it bounce? (Maybe find out outside – things could get messy!)

Visit a local reserve or park

Celebrating Easter in the southern hemisphere means we don’t get to real life baby chickens and the arrival of new-born birds in the trees. 

But it's still a great time to enjoy all the beauty and wonder of New Zealand’s great outdoors with family and friends. Mid-Autumn weather can often be quite settled too. Now’s the time to get amongst it before winter really begins to bite! 

We especially recommend visiting Tawharanui's TOSSI Reserve where you can find saddlebacks, shining cuckoo, Tui, Kereru, silvereye and many more native birds singing and hopping about the paths. 

Create more bird-friendly habitat

Easter can be the perfect time for planting trees as it’s not too dry and they’ll have time to establish roots and settle in place before winter arrives. If you can’t find space in the backyard but want to keep the tradition going, look around for local community planting days - or make a donation to a revegetation group near you.