A Blue tit has been roosting in the B&W birdcam box for a few nights now so we suspected that we might have eggs by now. The well of the nest has been kept closely covered during the day but this evening one egg was left on show, there may be more.
At least one egg in the B&W birdcam box
The Great Tit nest in the colour birdcam box was completed over a week ago when the female Great Tit also started to roost in the box again. This is often a sign that egg laying is about to start. The well of the nest has been kept closely covered by hair and fluff during the day, but today at least five eggs have been left uncovered whilst the birds have been out of the box.
Update: Still only five eggs on 1st May and it looks like the Great Tits have started to incubate the eggs. If all goes well we should see chicks in about two weeks time.
Last Friday Nick Brown and Maria, from the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, came to school to give an assembly about the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Falcons. The resident pair of falcons nest on a wooden platform erected high on the East side of the cathedral tower. This year they have laid four eggs and we are eagerly waiting for the chicks to hatch early in May.
They showed us lots of pictures of the peregrines and a video showing how Peregrine hunt their prey. We watched as the Peregrine plummeted in a ‘stoop’, reaching speeds of up to 200 miles an hour, towards its prey but narrowly missing the pigeon at the last minute. We learnt that the Peregrines’ diet consists only of birds which are caught on the wing.
Nick Brown also brought in a taxidermied juvenile Peregrine which sadly died after flying into a glass panelled roof shortly after fledging in 2009.
We had lots of questions to ask! If you want any more questions answering please leave a comment on this post and we will pass them on to Nick and Maria.
Although we don’t appear to have a Great Tit nesting in our Colour Birdcam Box any more, Great Tits started to build a nest yesterday. This time last year we had a pair of Tree Sparrows incubating eggs in our B&W Birdcam Box but so far it is only receiving visits from Blue Tits; one Blue Tit roosts in the box at night. Keep watching and let us know what you see.
Great tit bringing in moss for its nest
The beginning of March brought a few days of relatively warmer weather; we noticed that our nest boxes were attracting some day time visitors as well as the night time roosting birds. However, the snow in the second week may have put all thoughts of nesting on hold! In addition to the Great Tit which roosts in the colour birdcam box every night, we now have a Blue Tit roosting in the B&W birdcam box. Hopefully our resident Tree Sparrows will take up residence in the Sparrow terrace nest boxes which Mr Marriot helped to put up last week. These were kindly given to us by a member of Ogston Bird Club.
Please leave a comment if you see any birds investigating the school nest boxes.
Don’t forget to keep an eye on the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Falcons; they are expected to lay their first egg any day now. This year, the Peregrine Project team will be streaming even more live video from the nesting site. Webcams
Update: 11th April – Derby Cathedral Peregrines laid their forth and final egg of their clutch. Watch out for chicks hatching in about 30 days time!
A Peregrine Food Chain by LT Class 2
We love to hear about your wildlife stories; what birds or other wildlife have been visiting your garden?
If you love birds of prey, two great places to visit this summer would be Rutland Water for the Ospreys and Derby Cathedral for Peregrine falcons. Both these are established breeding grounds for their respective birds. You can also watch webcams set up over the nesting sites to keep up with the latest developments.
WEBCAM LINKS
Derby Cathedral Peregrine webcam (other views available)
Rutland Water Osprey webcam
Nottingham Trent University Peregrine webcam
If you want to view these webcams on a non-flash enabled device such as an iphone/ipad or some Android smartphones, then you can use the “Puffin Browser” app downloadable from the itunes app store or from Google play (there is a free version which you can try first).
Once again we had a very successful Big Schools’ Birdwatch and managed to submit four sets of results, with most children having the opportunity to contribute. We saw a grand total of 28 different species of bird, surpassing even last year’s impressive total of 23. It was noticeable this year how much the children’s knowledge of birds has increased, helped by their trips down to the bird hides at Ogston Reservoir at the end of last year.
A Chilly Birdwatch!
The recent snowy weather led to some interesting results. The first week’s sessions were carried out while snow still blanketed the school grounds and we had some very unusual visitors. By the second week, the snow had gone and our more typical birds returned. By far the most exciting sighting was that of a Woodcock which took off from the corner of the school field in the wooded/ditch area. The long billed Woodcock is usually only active after dusk but during severe weather (as we had during the first week) it can be forced out during the day to forage for food. Members of the Thrush family (Fieldfare, Redwing, Mistle Thrush and Song Thrush) were also more common during the first week. Bullfinch returned in their usual numbers once the snow had cleared, allowing them to forage for seeds under the Alder trees. For the first time we recorded Yellowhammers in the school grounds, although they are often seen in the surrounding fields. Finally, it was great to see good numbers of Tree Sparrows, especially as we know that they had at least one failed brood last year. Surprisingly, we didn’t record any House Sparrows this year.
We will be taking part in the Big Schools’ Birdwatch again this year 21st January – 1st February. If you wish to send in binoculars for your child to use, you may hand them into the School office (please make sure they are labelled with your child’s name). If you have any old spare binoculars which you are happy to donate school, we would be happy to put them to good use!
You might also like to take part in the RSPB’s nationwide Big Garden Birdwatch at home. You should undertake your survey on the 26th or 27th of January.
The last day of term brought a break in the recent rainy weather, so Mr Marriot kindly visited each nest box to clean them out. We checked out each box for evidence of nesting activity from the previous season. The location of each of these boxes can be viewed on Google Maps.
Sparrow terrace 1 – two of the three sections had shallow grassy nests (Sparrow?)
Corner field box – mainly grassy nest (Sparrow?)
Silver Birch Box – full nest of mainly moss (probably Blue Tit)
B&W birdcam box – full box, mainly dried grass and feathers (Tree Sparrow nest)
Butler Box – no nest
Staff car park box – mainly mossy nest (Blue Tit)
Sycamore tree box – inaccessible, unable to clean out
Pond box – inaccessible, unable to clean out
Bird table roof – Great Tit nest, not able to clean out
Open fronted nest box – Robin nest
Colour birdcam box – droppings left by roosting Great Tit (did not clean out)
Birds often use nest boxes to roost in once the weather gets colder in late autumn. Some, such as Blue Tits and Great Tit roost alone but others such as Wrens and House Sparrows may roost together in one box. The record number of Wrens seen roosting together in one box is 63!
Great Tit roosting in the colour birdcam box
We’ve had a Great Tit roosting in our colour birdcam box for at least a month now. It comes in every night just before it gets dark. We hope to have our B&W birdcam uploading again soon so that we can see if we are getting any night time visitors in this box.
It was a chilly but bright morning for our last bird watching session this year. The low sun made it tricky looking out of some of the hide windows but the children knew not to look out of these with their binoculars. We had hoped that a Kingfisher might come and perch on one of the branches overhanging the ponds around the hide, but it waited until later in the day to visit when we had gone! However, we did manage to add 4 new species, bringing our total count for November to 36.
25 different birds were seen today (new species in bold):
Coot, Moorhen, Black-headed gull, Cormorant, Grey Heron, Great Crested Grebe, Little Grebe, Pied Wagtail, Robin, Reed Bunting, Coal Tit, Willow Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Bullfinch, Dunnock, Blackbird, Redwing, Nuthatch, Sparrowhawk and Carrion Crow.
Children, I’ve really enjoyed taking you bird watching, your enthusiasm shone through! As well as thanking Ogston Bird Club for letting us use their facilities, I would also like to thank the parents who got up especially early so that their children could take part in this activity! Our next bird watching event will be ‘The Big Schools’ Birdwatch‘ at the end of January. We also hope to visit Ogston Reservoir again in the Spring.
Once again 11 children and their parents braved the elements to take part in an early morning bird watching activity at Ogston Reservoir. The children are getting very proficient in naming the birds visiting the feeders as well as the less familiar ones out on the reservoir. I can see that I will be handing out quite a few certificates in tomorrow’s achievement assembly!
We saw quite a few species that we didn’t see last week (in bold), including a whole flock of Lapwings, a male Bullfinch bathing in one of the ponds and a lovely little Redpoll. A magnificent Great Spotted Woodpecker also visited twice. In total we saw 27 different bird species (3 more than last week):
Mallard, Tufted Duck, Great Crested Grebe, Canada Goose, Little Grebe,Lapwing, Black-headed Gull, Gadwall, Grey Heron, Teal, Coot, Cormorant, Pied Wagtail, Robin, Nuthatch, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Great Tit, Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Redpoll, Reed Bunting, Dunnock, Blackbird and Bullfinch.
Someone said they saw a ‘Nut Tit’! I wonder if it looked like this?
Well done to the children (and adults!) who managed to get up early to take part in this morning’s bird watching session at Ogston Reservoir. Children kept a record of the birds they could identify on their bird spotting sheets. In total, we managed to spot 24 different species:
Coot, Moorhen, Cormorant, Canada Goose, Black-headed Gull, Little Grebe (Dab Chick), Great Crested Grebe, Grey Heron, Mallard, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Tree Sparrow, Dunnock, Reed Bunting, Nuthatch,Wren, Robin, Blackbird, Magpie and Goldcrest.
What an eagle-eyed lot you are!
Can you remember what these birds are called?
The next bird watching session will be from 8.00 am to 8.50 am on Thursday 22nd November. Please confirm if you wish to attend as we do need to restrict numbers.
We would like to thank Ogston Bird Club for allowing us to use their bird hides. A special mention must go to Mr Mike Swain for topping up the bird feeders before we arrived; this allowed us to see many birds close up in addition to those out on the reservoir. If you are interested in joining Ogston Bird Club, you can download a membership application form from their web site. An annual family membership only costs £12 (memberships purchased now, run through to the end of next year).
Although we caught a glimpse of a Tree Sparrow chick in April, we think this first brood didn’t survive because of the extremely wet weather at the end of April, which made it difficult for the adults to collect insects to feed their brood. There was a dead chick on view on 27th April and no evidence of any live ones. However, the adults have continued to visit the box so we may still see a second brood during May.
Great Tit Fledgling
On the 10th May, we spotted Great Tits going in out of the roof of the bird table in the busy Infant play area. On investigation, we could hear chicks chirping! We immediately removed any food off the bird table so as not to encourage Magpies or Squirrels to come near the nest. The adults have been extremely busy bringing caterpillars and insects to feed to their young and haven’t been bothered at all by Class 1 playing around the bird table. The chicks fledged this week (23/05/12), Mrs Tait had to rescue one frightened chick which had come to rest under the classroom door frame. It was relocated to the safer environment of a nearby bush where it later flew off from. We still have Blue tit chicks in the bird box in the staff car park.
This year, not only do we want you to tell us about the birds you have seen at school or at home by leaving a comment on this post, we also have an exciting new challenge for you. You can win awards by identifying birds and ticking them off in your personal record booklet. You must show Mrs Mahadevan or another adult that you can correctly identify each bird before recording it.
Binoculars are available at breaktimes and should be used at the birdwatching corner. You will only be allowed to use the binoculars if you can show that you know the safety rules and can look after them:
GOOD LUCK!
