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| Our Blue Tit Family |
Despite enduring the wettest April on record and more
typically autumnal conditions to the start of May, around 10,000 people have
still managed to enjoy the wildlife at Attenborough Nature Reserve in the last
few weeks without even having to step foot outside their homes! A family of
Blue Tits have been at the centre of all this attention as live footage from
our newly installed nest box was streamed online for the first time.
The Blue Tit box is just one of three camera equipped nest
boxes and two mobile nest cameras funded through the CEMEX community fund as
part of a project to engage the wider community into wildlife conservation. A
pan, tilt and zoom camera (also provided through the fund) has been positioned
on the roof of the Nature Centre and will provide stunning panoramic views around
Coneries Pond through the winter when the nest boxes are not occupied.
Whilst they are not exactly one of the rarest species to be
found on the Reserve, the Blue Tits have provided a rare insight into some of
the more intimate behaviours of birds that often go un-noticed. They certainly
surprised staff at the Nature Centre when they began to investigate the nest box
less than five minutes after it had been erected!
Regular visitors to the café, where video footage is being
projected on to a big screen, have been repeatedly popping in for updates on
the Blue Tit’s progress – many of which have followed them from day one.
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| A Young Blue Tit Prepares to Leave the Nest |
In total approximately nine eggs were laid, and at time of
writing (as some of the chicks are already starting to leave the nest) it would
seem that nine chicks will successfully fledge. If you were not able to watch
the Blue Tits in time, then not to worry, we plan to have another nest
featuring live on the website very soon. Visit www.attenboroughnaturecnetre.co.uk
to see the live video stream.
This camera project has been a dream of ours for some time
and has only been made possible by the CEMEX Community Fund which is a dedicated grant resource for
enabling and assisting communities local to CEMEX quarry and landfill sites to
carry out projects which improve or enhance local community facilities and
places of interest. As Attenborough Nature Reserve is former quarry that
has now been restored for nature conservation we were delighted to be awarded the
funding and hope everyone will enjoy the new images.
