Making nestboxes during National Nestbox Week

This past week has been National Nestbox Week and students from Pembrokeshire College helped our conservation officer construct and put up nestboxes on our nature reserve, marking the start of the bird breeding season in the UK. Now is the ideal time to put up a nestbox for the birds that use your garden, local community or farm. With a decline in natural nesting sites, such as dead trees, nestboxes provide a great alternative for birds to safely breed.

Folly Farm Conservation Officer Jack with students from Pembrokeshire College

Here at Folly Farm, we thought this was the perfect opportunity to help our feathered friends. We enlisted the help of the Countryside Management students at Pembrokeshire College to construct and help erect birdboxes for our nature reserve.

With sustainability in mind, we used off-cuts of wood which are collected from our building projects around the zoo. The team managed to make 14 boxes, each with a metal plate around the hole, which protects the nest from predators such as woodpeckers.

It is hoped that these bird boxes will attract the attention of the blue tits, great tits, sparrows or nuthatch; that have all been seen in the reserve. The students helped our conservation officer to put these up in suitable trees. During our time in the woodland, they managed to spot a number of birds including goldcrest, chaffinch and long-tailed tits, they even made use of new technology by using the Merlin App to identify birdsong.

The finished results

We are very thankful to the students and lecturers for their time and help with this little project and we hope to see lots of nestboxes in use this spring.

If you’re inspired to make or put up a nest box in your garden you can find some really hand hints here: https://www.nestboxweek.com/.