Here is a overview of what we have done since the beginning of the Secret Life of Birds project.
The Secret Life of Birds project started at the beginning of the 2015/2016 academic year, after we received the exciting news that our project was going to be funded by a Royal Society Partnership Grant. These grants facilitate collaborations between schools and universities to allow school-level students to get involved with scientific research. We had applied for funds to set up an ecological field laboratory at Maltby Academy, complete with nest boxes, feeding stations and wildlife camera traps, to allow us to study the behaviour of wild birds. Here's how the project has gone so far:
Project Launch
The project started with a visit from Dr Nicola Hemmings (University of Sheffield) to talk about studying wild birds. The Y8s read and analysed some scientific papers that look at different aspects of bird behaviour using camera observations, including one study on communication between parents and chicks in the nest box and another on social learning at feeding stations. The students then brainstormed ideas for experiments that they could conduct and planned how best to design the ecological field site at Maltby to allow them to test their ideas.
Biodiversity Survey
In order to assess the best locations for our project work, we conducted a biodiversity survey of different areas around the school in September 2015. We decided to focus on invertebrates as an indicator of general biodiversity in each area, because (a) invertebrates are relatively easy to sample and can be kept for a short period of time while they are identified and (b) invertebrates are an important source of food for many other animals, including wild birds. Our results showed that areas with soft ground, tall plants, flowers, shrubs and trees had the highest biodiversity, both in terms of total number of invertebrates and number of different invertebrate groups. Hard, man-made surfaces (e.g. the playground) had the lowest biodiversity. We decided that a plot of unused, overgrown land on one corner of the school ground, that backs onto a wooded area, would be the best place to conduct our bird behaviour projects. However, we also thought it would be interesting to compare bird behaviour in different areas, to see proximity to humans influences behaviour.
Ordering equipment and making bird boxes
We decided to have a go at making our own bird boxes during a Science/Technology club session. They came out fantastically! We ordered three different types of feeding station: ground feeders, uncovered table feeders and covered table feeders. We thought it would be interesting to see whether different bird species prefer to feed at different heights from the ground and whether some prefered open or covered spaces. We also ordered wildlife camera traps that record short clips of video when activated. We intend to use these to collect observational data on bird behaviour.
