The BBC Rain Garden at the WWT Barnes

The Rain Garden was built in 2012 as a Blue Peter/ BBC joint project with the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. There is a reclaimed shipping container with a ( now very dried up) wildflower meadow on the roof. The roof is designed to capture falling rainwater, absorbing and slowing it down before releasing any excess water into the circular planted beds below………..As you may imagine this has not been happening for the last few months …no rain! ….and the whole area is drier than I have ever seen it. Some of the circular beds are completely bare with dead plants. 
There has always been some sort of bee hotel there but today even that seemed empty.

We took the grandchildren there so that their parents could have a day out and we were so surprised how quiet it was. Great for us and them as no one  else in the adventure playground when we arrived . They also had a go at pond dipping which was not very productive, we only saw pond skaters and  found two varieties of little snails but we saw 16 varieties of birds. ( most of these they actually can identify, .not bad for five year olds) We bought a special notebook and they also have a beginners bird book so when we got home they wrote a list of the birds seen today and ticked them off the book. The plan is for us to keep this notebook and add to it when we take them on outings or if they see birds in our garden or theirs. Grandad is a keen and knowledgeable birdwatcher! .

I think if we had been at a place by the coast it would have been very crowded!