Nature Watch, with RON FREETHY

IF you want to get young children interested in wildlife, be prepared to spoon-feed them just a bit.

Farmer Parrs' Animal World in Fleetwood is ideal, with a cafe, shop, play area, a farming museum and a circular path.

This goes around pens containing llamas, kangaroos, rabbits, guinea pigs, as well as several breeds of pigs and horses. You can even have a ride on a horse and cart.

There is also a pond with wildfowl and some native species including moorhens.

The trees and thistles surrounding the pond are the perfect habitat for finches and on my visit I watched goldfinches, chaffinches and a bullfinch feeding on juicy looking blackberries.

Farmer Parrs is a good location if it rains as some animals are in large barns and the farming museum is a joy. Here are tractors dating to the 1930s and lots of old farming machinery and photographs. There is also a mock-up of a First World War trench and memories of those who fought in them.

On a lighter note there are artefacts relating to peat digging and railways, with good collections of wildlife to connect with outside the museum.

I watched three generations of one family in the museum, the kids watching chickens hatch while their parents and grandparents ordered lunch from the picnic area.

I enjoyed my lunch in the company of a flock of goldfinches feeding on thistles. A group of goldfinches together is a called a charm.

This word summarises my day at Farmer Parrs - charming.