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| The Habitat Explorer books, by Nick Baker |
Kids can stalk creatures every bit as ferocious as lions and tigers, but on a different scale, just metres from home, he reveals.
And there's tips on how to make gardens, or even back yards, more attractive to creatures like birds, insects, bats, hedgehogs and voles.
Kids can attract moths, for example, by dipping old socks or rope in a mixture of sweet food and a dash of wine, hanging the 'moth sock' from a tree, and waiting till after dark to see how many creatures turn up.
And then there's ponds - or even puddles - and information about the tiny life forms that colonise them, like toads, which can breed in small puddles.
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| The Habitat Explorer books, by Nick Baker |
If you're by the seaside, Baker explains how to make a simple 'burrow box' out of perspex and rubber tubing. Once the box is ready, kids are told how to catch a lugworm on the shore by gently digging by its indentation, and watch it burrowing in the box.
In the Forest and Woodland book, he reveals how to grow mistletoe, and how to age a tree - measure its girth in centimetres and then dividing by 2.5, as trees grow roughly 2.5cm a year.
And if your kids still think the outdoors is just cold and dull, the enthusiastic naturalist has one very simple tip. "The trick is to change your perspective on life, look at things from a different place and in a new way.
"A lot of the best and keenest naturalists I know are kids. What I really want you to do is get out there, get down on your hands and knees, get your hands dirty, look, learn and enjoy."
The Habitat Explorer books, by Nick Baker, are published by Collins, priced £5.99. Available now.
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