Birds friendly schools!

Although I am no longer working at the Nature Centre, I have taken on a new volunteering role with the RSPB. I will be a volunteer for the Birds Friendly Schools project in the West Midlands. This project is to tell schoolchildren all about garden birds - what they are called, what they look like, and how to help by feeding them. It involves three visits to a primary school, and works with one class of children who are between 7 and 11.

The first visit is to the school teacher, to explain how the project works and how the second and third visits will go. During the first visit, you give the teacher a nest box and a bird feeder, and some seed, so that the class can begin to start feeding the birds over winter. My first visit should be taking place over the next couple of weeks.

The second visit is in January, by which time you hope that some birds have been coming regularly to the feeder, which will be hanging somewhere in the school grounds so that the kids can see birds coming to it. The nest box should also have been put up, and birds may use it for roosting (sleeping overnight). Did you know that wrens like to roost together and you can get many wrens sleeping in one box! 

During the second visit the children do the Big Schools Birdwatch - similar to the Big Garden Birdwatch which has been going 30 years. You count the birds coming to your playground or garden for one hour, and these results help the RSPB see the population of birds nationwide; which are increasing or dropping in number. The results vary according to your local environment.

The results of your survey and the national survey form the basis of your third visit and so you can explain to the children how different birds live in different areas, and how they have different features (beaks, legs etc) according to what they eat, where they live etc.

I have attended training by the RSPB and I am very impressed by the quality and amount of resources given to me to give to the school and to use on my visits, to help make it interesting and exciting for the children. I was feeling nervous about it, but I am confident that I know a lot about the birds we are focussing on (six main ones) - and other garden birds. I have been feeding the birds in my garden, which is important in this snowy weather.  I am sure I can be enthusiastic, as I love birds, and I hope I can inspire at least one child to enjoy them too.

I am currently trying to contact the teacher at the school (in Smethwick) and arrange a time to visit. I will keep you posted with how each stage of it goes!