www.balgreen.edin.sch.uk

Eco Schools Home Page!

Balgreen Goes For Green Flag 2008/9

After three years successfully working towards our Bronze and Silver Eco Awards, Balgreen is now working towards its first Green Flag. Our Pupil Eco Team made up from P3-7 pupils are focusing on:

-Recycling

-Saving Electricity and Water and

-Continuing our Garden development.

Stay tuned for further developments!

Our BLUE TIT familiy is back for 2009!!

Now setting up home annually in our Bird Box, our 'Bird Box Camera' linked to a camera in the lower corridor shows pupils real time footage of our birds building their nest, laying their eggs, chicks hatching, feeding and finally chicks fledging their nest. This is even better than 'BBC2 Bird Watch'!! Drop by and see pupils amazed as Mother Nature unfolds before their very eyes.

Did You Know?

Bluetits are very agile birds, and love to swing from nut feeders where you might be lucky enough to see them performing some acrobatic feats! Blue tits are especially fond of peanuts, sunflower seeds and suet, but feed on insects during the summer.

Bluetits normally pair for life. In spring they build a cup-shaped nest made of moss and grass and lined with hair, feathers and wool. They usually build their nests in holes in trees or walls, but will also make their homes in nestboxes.

The female lays 7-13 eggs in April or May, which she incubates for 12-16 days. It's hard to believe, but a single brood of young blue tits may eat between 600 and 1,000 caterpillars a day! Both parents feed the hungry chicks, and they fledge (leave the nest) after two or three weeks. You can spot young blue tits because they have yellow cheeks, whereas adult birds have white cheek feathers.

On average only one fledgling will survive to breed again the following year.