Oxford kids give birds a helping hand … with nest boxes BUT is it worth the effort?

02/21/2012 admin Children and Nature, National Nest Box Week 2012

A good news story for National Bird Box Week and celebrated by child and nature-friendly groups such as NAEE_UK, with children getting hands-on in their local area.

But should we bother to give nature a ‘helping hand’ – or not interfere and leave birds to fend for themselves? Reality is, we humans have already ‘interfered’ in and changed the natural state by putting towns and cities where wildlife used to call home…

But what do you think? Are bird boxes necessary or just a symbolic – and largely pointless – exercise in making ourselves feel better about how we treat our local wildlife? Pretty atrociously at times!  

Do you have any stories about building bird boxes or looking after wildlife in your community?  Comment below or at my Learn From Nature on twitter.  

 *** Link to Nest Box Resource page 

PUPILS from a primary school in Oxford have been making their local park much more homely for their feathered friends.

The youngsters from St Andrew’s Primary School, Headington, have been spending their Saturdays making nest boxes to provide birds with somewhere to take refuge. On Friday the city council’s park wardens took the 24 boxes around Bury Knowle Park and helped to put them up.

Each box has been individually numbered so that youngsters can see how popular the birds’ new homes are becoming.

Adam Davenport, seven, from Headington, helped brother Oliver Davenport, nine, to make one of the boxes.

He said: “I think the boxes look really good and this is a good way of taking care of the birds.”

Fellow pupil Max Ebner, seven, from Headington, added: “The different pieces for the boxes were already cut out when we got them so they weren’t too hard to make.”

The flat-packed boxes were funded by community organisation Headington Action and children from the London Road school put them together.

The initiative was the brain-child of environment group Friends of Bury Knowle Park.

Chairman of the Friends Rosemary Belton said: “I hope it will make the park a much more friendly environment for birds.

“When we were given our Green Flag award last summer one of the comments the inspectors made was that there wasn’t much focus on wildlife and that made us think.

“The youngsters seemed to really get into it and they will be able to watch out for what is nesting in each other’s boxes over the next few months.”

Source : http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/9540320.Kids_get_a_bird___s_eye_view/

BTO - British Trust for Ornithology, Children and Nature Network, Kids, NAEE UK, National Nest Box Week 2012, Oxford Mail