For Science week, I was asked to run some sessions in the school for whom I set up a nest box a month or so ago. The school were doing lots of exciting activities for Science week and had asked me to come in to do a session with each of the Year groups. Since they had hatched some eggs in school, I decided to bring my one of my cockerels and one of my hens into school for the children to see and talk about and also to do a barn owl pellet dissection session with a Year 2 Class. This is the youngest group I have done this activity with and they were very excited!
As I came into school, the children recognised me and with shrieks of “WildlifeKate is here!”, I was taken straight to the large TV in their central hall area to be excitedly be shown and told all about the blue tits that were in and out of the nest box! The children (and staff) were all thrilled to be seeing this pair in and out, even bringing in a few bits of nesting material and everyone wanted to tell me what they had seen! There were so many questions, that I did a quick session in their assembly to explain about the behaviour they were seeing.
What delighted me most is that the TV that the nest box image is running on is mostly used for a before and after school club and the children use the Nintendo Wii on this screen. Since the birds have been coming in and out, they don’t want the wii on and would rather watch the blue tits… how BRILLIANT is that??!!! It absolutely made my day! The TV is on all the time, with the volume turned up quite high, so as soon as the children hear anything, whether they are in assembly or having their lunch, they all want to watch it; it was absolutely lovely to see!
I had a brilliant session dissecting the barn owl pellets and I will be posting some photos as soon as I have permissions from the families involved. A big thanks again to Sam at Heligan, who takes the time to collect and send me the pellets to help educate the next generation of naturalists! These children were so keen and so full of questions that it was a pleasure to spend the morning with them!
