I've been completely inundated with AS exams recently, having just come out of my penultimate exam. Even though this has meant I've been less active with blogging, I've still managed to keep my projects ticking over!
Out of my 6 bird boxes, only one is occupied this year, with a pair of Great Tits. Sadly I don't have a camera fitted in this bird box, and as I didn't want to disturb them whist next building I thought it would be best to let them be, and not attempt to install a camera. However last year I managed to capture the story of Great Tit pair, from the initial nest box inspection right the way till the chicks fledged the nest - some images I captured are shown below. But the discovery of a Blackbird nest, in a dense hedge at the back of our garden, made up for the lack of bird box occupants! I quickly fitted a webcam to a branch overhanding the nest, allowing me to observe the action from my laptop with the help of a very long extension cable!
The Great Tit family...
The Great Tit family...
And the Blue Tit family...
The Blackbird laid a total of 4 eggs before she began incubating. It was around 7 days into the incubation process - about half way through - when the nest sadly got predated. As I was using my laptop to monitor this camera I couldn't record 24/7 so I don't know what predated the nest, but my guesses include magpie, crows or brown rat. Here are a series of pictures documenting the short-lived story of the Blackbird nest!
In other news - three of my wildlife images have been displayed in my school biology building, including the modest blue tit, the timid mountain hare and the inquisitive grey seal. I've designed information pages to display alongside these images explaining how I captured the images and general information about the species featured. I'm hoping these displays will attract and inspire other pupils, especially the lower years, to read up about our natural world, and perhaps even to have a go at wildlife photography themselves!
Another exciting new project of mine is the possible introduction of meat-free Monday every half-term at my school. This is only an idea on the drawing board at the moment, but a trial was ran two weeks ago, with a vegetarian lunch and tuck shop. This idea was brought about with the help of Eco Club, addressing the issue of animal agriculture, and it's affect upon the environment - climate change, pollution, deforestation, species extinctions etc. A blog post will be coming shorty regarding this controversial issue. The trial seemed to go down as well as can be expected at an all boys school, with many positive comments being made by both students and teachers.
Thank you for reading. Sorry it's a short post but I don't have much time on my hands!
