Children Getting Egg-cited about Birds Nesting

Sacred Heart School children are on tender hooks to see if their bird nesting boxes will have chicks in again this year.  The children can watch this fantastic wonder of nature unfold before their eyes as three out of the four boxes have webcams inside them and the streaming from these can be watched via the school website here. The username and password are birdbox

The four bird boxes are located at different positions around the school’s ground including one on the school roof which can be seen through a rooflight in a hallway.  The boxes were installed four years ago and each year apart from the first year blue tits have nested in one of the boxes.  At the moment, one of the bird boxes located in a yew tree has a lovely nestful of feathers which you can see on the webcam and the children are hoping that eggs will be laid soon.  Karen Edwards, headteacher at Sacred Heart says, “The school takes a great interest in birds and they have lots of unusual visitors to the school including siskins, wagtails and woodpeckers and as well as watching the bird boxes they take part in the Great Bird Watch each year.

Each classroom has a computer set up with the webcam feed on and at every Friday assembly Karen gives an update.  She adds, “We only have a small time frame to watch the birds because from the hatching of the eggs to the chicks flying away is only 2 weeks.”

When we asked some Year 1 children about the bird boxes…

Bethie Prior said she was looking forward to the little birds tweeting, Hayley Lloyd wanted to watch the chicks sleeping and Lily Mae said that she hoped there would be six eggs laid.

Update 7 May 11 Eggs have been laid and the Mummy Blue Tit is sitting on them.