Knap, Swanage

Welcome to our home. As you walk along the road, ours may seem like just another ordinary bungalow, but once you go through the gate and up the steps (only a few), you will soon see this is a wonderful space for me and some of my friends. If it is hot, you may see me flying around gently perching every now and then on a flower to gather nectar or pollen (my favourites at the moment are fuschia and lavender) or stopping at the bird bath for a drink of water. My human guardians have planted a large range of early flowering trees and shrubs, perennial plants and bulbs that flower just about all year round as the winters are quite mild here in Swanage. This helps us enormously as we can forage close to home.

We do however like to go into the neighbours gardens too and you may find us near the Downs or at Durlston Country Park. Did you know there are 18 different types of bee in the United Kingdom and we can fly up to 3 miles if we find a food source we like. It isn’t just bees that live here though. We are visited by many birds; our owners like to help them too by providing thick hedges they can nest in and around the garden you will see some nesting boxes for those birds who like something a little more luxurious.

Our owners help by feeding them bird seed and suet blocks during the colder months. Nothing too grand but they seem to like it. In the garden you will also see two houses for frogs and toads. This is called a Frogilo. You will find them situated in a quiet, cool, shaded area. It keeps the frogs cool in the summer but warm in the winter. They are having a pond built for them too but our owners don’t seem to be making much progress with that. They keep saying they are busy. Hidden amongst the shrubs you may see a hedgehog house. We are not really sure if anyone lives there but it would be nice if they came to visit us. Our home is not very tidy so please don’t expect manicured lawns and weed free borders. We like it like this. It gives us places to hide and we can pop up in places you don’t expect to see us.

Our owners also like to help the environment by looking after their own house. They do all the usual stuff like recycling just about everything since the Co-op are now recycling ‘scrunchable plastics’. They have water butts to catch the rain water (and they use ‘grey’ water too) so they can water all the pots and container grown plants which are kept in trays made from recycled plastic. They grow vegetables in containers too but these are all finished now. Our owners have also had cavity wall insulation installed to try and keep their house warm and extra thick loft installation. This year they have installed solar panels to generate their own electricity. They look very smart but you can’t really see them from the road so please come and have a look from the garden. You can say hello to us too as you go past. We hope to see you soon.