One festive challenge, 12 Days Wild

12 Days Wild is a festive nature challenge set by the Wildlife Trust.

Encouraging us to do one wild thing a day from the 25th December to the 5th January.

So, could you do one wild thing for 12 days over the festive season?  

You may remember The Wildlife’s Trust’s 30 Days wild challenge where they asked everyone to do one wild thing a day in June.

As a passionate gardener who gardens for wildlife, especially for the all important pollinators, I was raring to get involved and get involved I did!

Well, now I am raring to get involved in this festive challenge too.

I hope that you will join me and sign up too. Link below with more details and how to sign up.

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/12dayswild

I am a keen advocate for the benefits that the great outdoors can bring to our wellbeing too. In particular, our physical and our mental health. So, getting together for this winter challenge would be fabulous.

Planning 12 days Wild

Although there will be less wildlife to see in the winter, I hope to spot some in my garden.

As well as the friendly robin, featured at the top of this post and further below, I expect to see some red kites over my garden.

Additionally, I will see every sunset and sunrise, so hopefully there will be some great photo opportunities.

Also, there will be worms and other soil dwellers to be seen as I finish planting my tulip bulbs in the borders.

Clearly, I have too many bulbs yet again, to finish my planting in November. Nevertheless, the tulips will be fine to be planted as long as the ground is not frozen.

As a matter of fact, The Wildlife Trust does suggest some winter gardening. That works well for me, as I never stop gardening, whatever the season or weather!

Wildlife seen in November

My first photo shows a beautiful red admiral butterfly on a dahlia in late November.

Ordinarily, the butterflies would have disappeared by November, but this year they were still present in my garden.

Thankfully, I had some dahlias still blooming their socks off, to provide nectar. Ultimately, a hard frost arrived though, and the dahlias finished on the last day of November.

I shall miss the butterflies and look forward to them returning in the warm weather next year.

Of course, some of them may well be hibernating in the sheltered areas I have in my garden.

Naturally, I will be adding more dahlias for pollinators to my garden next year so more food for the butterflies for many months.

Clearly, three hundred and fifty dahlias are not enough for me either!

I have provided links below for a couple of my earlier dahlias for pollinator posts

10 beautiful dahlia flowers for pollinators

12 of the best dahlias for pollinators

My second photo shows the same fabulous dahlia, this time with a bumble bee. Another photo that was taken in late November.

In recent years, bumblebees have been recorded actively flying and foraging through the November to February period. Therefore, we may be lucky enough to see them during 12 Days Wild.

Hopefully, my clematis, Freckles, will be flowering over this period. Freckles is the first clematis to flower in the year and therefore a perfect food source for any winter active bees.

Next, it will be the snowdrops, followed by the crocus and iris reticulata. I grow all of these, primarily for the early pollinators, but also for some colour in the garden.

I also have the winter bedding plants for the same reasons.

Wildlife for 12 Days Wild

I am thinking about the wildlife that may be seen during 12 Days Wild and here is someone who is bound to appear.

My photo shows the beautiful robin who follows me around the garden.

In fact, I am met at the back door and chirped at every time I appear to don my wellies or gardening shoes.

Clearly, keen to nab any mealworms I may have in my pockets. Naturally, I always have a few plus some corn as a treat for my beautiful rescue chickens.

Plenty to share with my friendly robin. However, I never feed the robin with my hens, due to the risk of avian flu.

I have my fingers crossed that my lovely girls will not be confined to barracks any time soon. Naturally, they would hate to miss any activities in the garden and the subsequent posing for photos. Always keen to feature in another chicken post, with wildness guaranteed!

I am sure the lovely robin will be a constant feature in my 12 Days Wild, along with the occasional appearance of other wild birds.

Hopefully, some deer will be spotted on the fields at the rear of my garden too. Fingers crossed I can snap a photo or twenty!

My 30 Days Wild posts

I thought you might like a recap on my 30 Days Wild challenge in June this year.

Also, for my lovely new subscribers who will probably not have seen these posts.

Here are the 30 Days Wild post in order of wildness

30 Days Wild. First week challenge

30 Days Wild, week two of the challenge

The fantastic wildness of magic week 3

Wild 30 Days. The beautiful finale

Clearly, the weather was much warmer in June than it will be for the festive 12 Days Wild count but being wild in winter sounds good to me.

I hope that you can join me for some winter wildness. Whether this is in your garden, local woodland, parks, by the river or the sea.

On the subject of subscribers, and visitors to my site, do let me know of any ideas for posts that you would like to see.

I hope you have enjoyed this post and will join me on the next one.

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