Brilliant Bird Boxes. Bringing Birds to people

Aim

Install nest box cameras in schools to inspire children . Build nest boxes for endangered Swifts, Barn Owls and Sand Martins.

Our Worcester and Malvern RSPB local group are very enthusiastic about making some real changes. We are involved with many practical projects to do something really effective for wildlife and to get more people involved with the natural world.

We recognise that it's vital to inspire young people and to give them the opportunity to get close to nature. Children are the future.

Something as simple as looking into a bird’s nest can inspire a love of nature and a fascination for wildlife that will last a lifetime.

We want to get loads more Brilliant Bird Boxes out there to get young people inspired, communities working together and land owners reconnected with the fabulous nature on their doorstep. These boxes will make a real difference to species in decline.

We are going to erect Camera Nest Boxes in Worcester City Schools to allow children in the classroom to follow the family lives of birds.

Blue Tits and Great Tits are most likely to take up residence. Nest building, egg laying, incubation and feeding the chicks can all be followed as it happens.

We have licensed bird ringers in our group so if the weather is good and the chicks grow well, the children can watch the chicks being ringed. Anyone want to hold one?

We want to start by installing 5 quality camera nest boxes. Top Spec wireless nest boxes are around £200.

Swifts are amazing and we want them back. We are working with community groups to bring Swifts back into people’s lives.

These visitors from Africa can fly at 70 miles an hour and most never touch the ground, only landing at their nest sites to breed. Screaming flocks of Swifts in towns and villages are becoming much less common; numbers have more than halved in the last 30 years. 

One reason for this decline is because many of their traditional nest sites, in gaps and crevasses under tiles and in the eaves of houses, are being lost when buildings are improved. Modern buildings are built to be airtight and keep birds out from the start.

Group member Simon Evans fitted 20 nest boxes in Malvern last year. We really want to get behind this project to build and install groups of boxes in local communities, on schools, Worcester University and Council buildings. 

Swifts are often very slow to take to new locations but we can speed that up. Installing callers that play the screaming calls of nesting Swifts attracts them and encourages them to try the nest boxes. 

We promise to choose the sites carefully because we understand that not everyone wants to hear Swift calls first thing in the morning!

Your money will buy :-

• Materials to build lots more nest boxes (this year we're incorporating a ready-made nest cup),     
• Swift callers, they're £40 each off the shelf. 
• Hire of a cherry picker and driver to put boxes up in difficult places.

We've costed the Swift work in this project at around £800

Who doesn't love a Barn Owl?

Creating additional sites for Barn Owls by putting up nest boxes is a great way to start a conversation about encouraging wildlife with farmers and landowners.

Nest sites can be scarce and Barn Owl boxes are a well proven method of attracting them if they are in the area. Of course, the other ingredient is having long grassland that encourages voles and shrews, creating good feeding areas. 

We build all our own boxes using the very reliable Barn Owl Trust design.

£60 buys quality materials to build boxes that will last. We'd love to get another 20 Barn Owl boxes out on farms in the next year and be able to talk to another 20 landowners about wildlife conservation.

In 2022 we partnered with the Canal and Rivers Trust and the Worcester Environmental Group to build, install and monitor an artificial Sand Martin bank along the River Severn in the centre of Worcester.

The project was amazingly successful. Sand Martins took to it straight away and over the summer 43 young Sand Martins fledged.

With your support, and if funds allow, we want to expand on this success. We would like to build a prototype mobile Sand Martin box. We think this could be invaluable in sand and gravel workings and to test out potential new nesting locations before expensive permanent brick Sand Martin banks are built.

£700 will buy the materials for the box and we'll do all the work ourselves.

If I could only do one part of this project, the most important element to me is to get children inspired by bringing birds into their classroom and getting children outdoors to enjoy wildlife.

This project successfully funded on 12th May 2023