News archive
May 2008
Sunday, 25 May 2008
Bird Box Days
March 1st was Bird Box Day in Riding Mill village. The younger children at the village school had been making little bird boxes and painting them in bright colours (I hope the birds don't mind!), and older children had made or bought rather more conventional types. Today was the day they were being erected in the newly created wildlife garden adjacent to the Village Hall, and the area was buzzing with activity. I noticed one box was proudly labelled 'Ben', and we helped Angus carefully position his roosting pocket in the middle of a thick laurel bush. It was clear the children had become very interested in the new wildlife garden, and judging by the number of adults up ladders with hammers and screwdrivers, so had the rest of the village.
Inside the Hall they were serving coffee and home-made cakes, children were making pine cone feeders and nesting material wreaths to hang in the garden. And in the midst of it all was Newcastle RSPB Local Group's display table, looking rather good as the photograph should show, manned by Brian Moorhead, John Lambert and me. John was kept pretty busy blowing up RSPB balloons, and we managed to give away plenty of activity books and information leaflets to these budding birders.
Why were we there? We had been invited to the event because, about two years ago, one of the villagers had been to a 'Garden Birds' slide presentation we had given to a gardening club, and had remembered us! I went along to see the garden in its later stages of development from an overgrown bramble patch, and was really impressed by the commitment of the local people to developing the area into a wildlife garden and open classroom. We were pleased to be able to contribute some advice about positioning the bird boxes, and to see it being put into action on Bird Box Day.
Our next Bird Box Day was at the Rising Sun Country Park on March 5th. As you will no doubt remember, this is going to be the venue for our 40th anniversary event in June 2009, and we had decided to put up some bird boxes this year in the hope that they will be in full use by the birds by next year. One of the activities we plan to have then is a guided bird-watch walk in the reserve, with plenty of binoculars and possibly telescopes, so we will be able to watch the activity at the bird boxes. So Clive bought several lengths of second hand timber from the local woodyard for £5, and spent several happy (I think) hours constructing half a dozen stylish bird boxes.
The day we had arranged to erect the boxes on the reserve was blowing a bit of a gale, so Brian and I held the ladder and passed up tools on request, while Clive swayed about above us banging in nails. The photograph doesn't really show what he was thinking! All in aid of the Local Group!
Denise Morphet