Bird box clearing and bat box making

Over the past year we’ve been doing lots of work in the University Wildlife Garden, our very own little bit of wild-ness in amongst the concrete and tenements of the university. The garden is a haven for native plants and wildlife. This year we’ve been doing some work to make birds and bats feel more at home in the garden.

On January 23rd four of us braved the cold weather to clear out the bird boxes in preparation for spring. At that time we had four bird boxes in the garden. Only one of them had a nest in it, but we realised this was because one had only recently been put up, and the two others weren’t well secured to the tree so were swinging around all over the place – I wouldn’t want to live in something so insecure, and I doubt a bird would! At a later project we secured the swinging boxes to the tree, so hopefully this time next year we’ll find a few more nests in the boxes.

Following this, on the 15th of February we had a mass bird and bat box making session in one of the seminar rooms of the Boyd Orr building. The university joiners had kindly supplied and cut untreated wood (thank you!), which made things a lot easier. In total we made 6 bat boxes and 4 bird boxes. The bird boxes have now been put up in the wildlife garden, and a representative from the Clyde bat group will soon be coming to the garden to put up the bat boxes. Bat boxes need to be specially positioned, and as bats are a protected species in the UK, only specially trained bat experts can touch them.

(pictures: top left - bird box in the wildlife garden. top right - Scotty the monkey putting up a bird box. middle - completed bird boxes. bottom middle - the Dirts making bird & bat boxes. bottom - how not to hammer in a nail)