Children from Coniston Primary School Wildlife Club have been building new homes for local wildlife in preparation for the coming spring.

The project was enabled by generous funding from the National Lottery ‘Awards for All’ scheme. With help from National Trust and Cumbria Wildlife Trust staff the children used their practical skills to assemble a selection of bird boxes. These varied in size and design to suit a range of bird species including robins, tree creepers, blue tits, great tits and tree sparrows.

The children hoped their completed boxes would “keep the birds warm and away from cats” and would mean they could “have more birds in Coniston”.

The children took some boxes home for their gardens, whilst the rest will be put up in woodlands around the Coniston area. One site will be the tree collection at Monk Coniston, as Moira Herring from the National Trust explains. “Since we began restoring the walled garden at Monk Coniston there has been regular activity in the garden after 30 years of silence. We’ve noticed a number of increasingly inquisitive robins that follow the every move of our garden volunteers. We hope some nest boxes in the grounds will attract even more of these gardeners’ friends and other birdlife next summer.”

Some of Coniston’s quieter woodlands will get boxes specifically designed to suit the needs of certain more secretive and rare bird species. “The boxes especially designed for tree creepers are a really strange shape - they were the children’s favourite” says Jessica Worlock, the National Trust Community Learning Officer. “We’ve also made boxes to attract more unusual species like Spotted and Pied Flycatchers which favour mature open oak woodland.”

Further information about Awards for All can be found at www.awardsforall.org.uk . For more information about the National Trust see www.nationaltrust.org.uk or to find out about Wildlife Watch Clubs in Cumbria contact the Cumbria Wildlife Trust.