Making Nest boxes with Cubs and Scouts

You might think that making nest boxes in sessions at Cubs and Scouts might not make much difference beyond the actual boxes that get put up.  You'd be completely wrong.

Chew Stoke Cubs with Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig

We made 15 boxes in Cubs and 10 boxes on Scouts which were spread between the member's primary schools and our comprehensive, Chew Valley School, who put them up in wildlife club.

However, the sessions themselves were practical and enjoyable but at the same time, they did a bird quiz naming birds, listened to a talk about Antarctica where apart from penguins and seals, I talked about my key message, "fight to stop anyone who wants to do anything to damage Antarctica".  Afterwards, lots of them contacted me asking me to post a video I mentioned of a Leopard Seal skinning a penguin.

Both groups were going on to do the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch at the end of January and a nature badge and environmental badge, as well as checking on the nest boxes to see if they are being used and next year whether they need to be cleaned out.

Each of the local primary schools had a nest box and Chew Valley had 16 nest boxes. This is the link to the Chew Valley Gazette article about the project which is on page 46 http://bit.ly/25DqdpY and this was an article on the school website about the boxes http://bit.ly/1W1KSQj

About the Writer

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig on Scilly
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig

Mya-Rose Craig is a 13 year old young birder, naturalist, conservationist, environmentalist, activist, writer and speaker. She is based near Bristol and writes the successful Birdgirl Blog, with posts about birding and conservation from around the world. She loved seeing Mountain Gorillas in East Africa and Penguins in Antarctica over Christmas 2015, her 7th continent. 

Mya-Rose is a Bristol European Green Capital Ambassador along with Kevin McCloud, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Tony Juniper, Simon King, Miranda Krestovnikoff and Shaun the Sheep! See the full list of Bristol Ambassadors. She has also been listed with the singer songwriter George Ezra and actress Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones as one of Bristol's most influential young people. Please like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter