https://www.treecouncil.ie/native-irish-trees

Nature Learning:
This game is a version of the game Head Honcho. It’s a good gathering game and a great game to warm everyone up.  

The Gypsy Cuckoo Bee can be found all across Ireland. It invades the nests of White-Tailed Bumblebees (Bombus lucorum), which is one of our most common Bumblebee species. Cuckoo Bees do not build their own nests, and they do not produce workers to help raise their young. Instead, female Cuckoo Bees invade the nests of Bumblebees and kill the true queen. The confused workers then mistake the invading Cuckoo Bee as the queen (i.e. their mother) and are tricked into raising the Cuckoo Bee’s offspring as if they were their own sisters. Cuckoo Bees visit flowers to drink nectar but they do not collect pollen. There are only 28 species of Cuckoo Bee on Earth, including six that live in Ireland.

How to:

1. Have students stand in a circle.

2. Select one student to be the Cuckoo Bee and send them out of the circle.

3. Silently choose one student from the circle to be the Queen Bumblebee.

4. The Queen starts a movement (buzzing like a bee, flapping arms, hopping, clapping, etc.). Everyone else in the circle (the workers) copies the Queen. The Queen should change the action every few seconds.

5. Invite the Cuckoo Bee back into the circle. Their challenge is to carefully watch the movements and try to spot who the Queen is.

6. If the Cuckoo correctly guesses the Queen, they get to choose the next Cuckoo. A new Queen is then selected, and the game continues.

Notes:

• Encourage silly and creative movements — the more fun, the better!

• This game helps children practice observation, focus, and group coordination.

• After playing, link back to the science: the Cuckoo Bee has to “spot” and trick the Queen in real life, just like in the game.

At the centre of Ireland lies Uisneach, the navel of the land, where the five provinces meet. In the old stories it is told that one day, a mighty being appeared there: Trefuilngid Treochair, the “triple bearer of increase.” He was no ordinary man — some say he was of the Túatha Dé Danann, others that he came from the Otherworld beyond the seas.

Trefuilngid carried with him a bundle of seeds — including acorn, apple and hazel.  From these seeds came the promise of sustenance, healing, and knowledge.

Some say Trefuilngid gave the seeds to the wise elder, Fintan MacBochaire who planted them in the four provinces of Ireland and others say that it was Trefuilngid himself who stood upon the stone at Uisneach and cast the seeds into the soil. 

From them grew five great trees, each one at the boundary of a province:

Bile trees - sacred centre

• The Ash of Tortu in Meath,

• The Yew of Ross in Kildare,

• The Oak of Mugna in Carlow,

• The Ash of Dathi in Connacht,

• And the Tree of Uisneach itself at the island’s heart.

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These were the five sacred trees of Ireland, guardians of the land. Each tree was said to be a source of plenty — bearing not only fruit and nuts, but also offering shade, wisdom, and spiritual protection.

The seeds that spread from those trees gave Ireland her grains, her herbs, her healing plants, and her forests. They were seen as the origin of all growth, the very pattern of fertility across the island.

Trefuilngid Treochair’s act was not only one of planting, but of ordering the land: the five trees were symbols of harmony between the provinces, rooted in the centre yet reaching outward. They tied the people to the soil, to the seasons, and to each other.

It is said that later kings would travel to Uisneach to honour these trees, for as long as they stood, Ireland would flourish. And though the trees themselves have long since fallen, their story endures — a reminder that from the smallest seed may spring the ordering of a whole land.

2. Find your Flock

3. Create a Bird Hide

4. Use ‘Noisy Bird’ Toys

5. Make Bird Feeders