BEST       ( Bentley Eco Schools Team)

BEST - Bentley Eco School Team The John Bentley School in Calne has an Eco Group called BEST, we are a group of students who think about the environment and look at ways we can be more environmentally friendly and promote sustainability within our school: We meet every Wednesday Lunchtime at "The Drop In" upstairs in Science.

Tuesday, 26 June 2012

Calne in Bloom 2012

Green Calne Day

The Art of Recycling



This art work was produced by some of the students from school.  The individual letters having been made using a process called "locker hooking".  Each square has been made by using a variety of recycled materials from crisp packets, (crisps eaten and packets washed!),  plastic bags and waste material.  
Currently displayed in Calne Library:


Plant Sale

A successful day in which the Eco group raised £42 selling plants. This has enabled us to purchase more compost, gardening gloves and organic, child friendly slug slime......to stop them eating our plants!

Friday, 1 June 2012

Greenhouse

The School now has a greenhouse, which is already full of seeds and young plants.  The tomato plants that were planted by the year 11's a couple of months ago are now about 1ft tall and looking really healthy.  We have cucumber, butternut squash, corgettes, peppers, chilli's, gourds, pumpkins, garlic, onion, lots of different herbs which will be used by food tech,  and a variety of flowers that are being grown for the Calne in Bloom, Queens Diamond Jubilee flower competion that was won by

 Sophie King 9BB




Wednesday, 23 May 2012

pictures of the birds

14th May 2012                                                                        




18th May 2012                                                                         




 

23rd May 2012                                                                            


 Today is the day the Olympic Torch came through Calne.........  We came in on Monday and the hardware to the computer has stopped working so I'm unable to get anymore images of the babies.  There are sadly only 5 left but they are growing  up fast.

28th May 2012


Monday morning and the baby birds have flown the nest, 8 eggs were laid, 7 hatched, 2 babies died in the first few days and only 4 flew the nest.

Day 1             Box put up:
Day 2             Blue tits start building their nest
Day 21           Eggs are laid
Day 31          Incubation has started
Day 42          Eggs have hatched
Day 62          Birds have flown

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Nest box with camera

Diary of our JBS Blue Tits


Monday 8th May:  Great excitement this morning as the eggs have hatched and mum is busy feeding her brood.














Friday 4th May:  The Web cam is now streaming, just few little tweaks and it should be available for everyone to watch, until then here is a picture of Mum sat from the live feed:



Monday 30th April: Very windy, wet weather all weekend, came in this morning and Mum is sat on the eggs still.
Friday 27th April: Mum was sitting on the eggs when I got into school and Ms Bates had seen her the night before, she spent the day on the eggs: I think this is the start of mum incubating her eggs.

Thursday 26th April: Again didn't see any birds.

Wednesday 25th April: So excited this morning as Ms Bates had seen Mummy Blue Tit in the next the previous evening. The Eco Group checked the web cam at lunchtime and again no birds, I am worried about the eggs:

Tuesday 24th April: I have checked the web cam several times and have seen no birds, I am worried they have left the nest because of the activity around the tree whilst the wiring was being repaired.

Blue Tits nest is made of moss and lined with soft material such as hair and feathers.  They start egg laying between late March and early June and produce one brood.  The clutch can be between 7 and 16 eggs that are white with speckles.
Blue Tits like a small next box with a 25mm hole (or larger) and it needs to be placed about 1-5meters above ground.  Position the box facing East with a clear  flight path to entrance.  The reason for facing East is that the box warms up early when the sun rises and is protected from the heat of the midday sun.


Tuesday 17th April: The wires have been fixed and WOW! It looks as if 8 eggs have been laid.

Half Term: It would appear that the Blue Tits have built a nest, unfortunately we did not have the camera connected to the website so we missed the nest being build. We then noticed that we had lost the image from inside the box and upon further investigation it looks like the camera wire has been chewed through by squirrels.
Day One: 28th March 2012: The nest box and feeder were put up on the large Oak tree so the birds could get used to it..... I didn't expect Blue Tits to start nesting the next day.
Mr Thornton and I fixed the camera into the box with the blue tit still in it.




INFORMATION:  

The Blue Tit can lay between 7 and 16 eggs.   It's the female that incubates the eggs and for this she has a "brood patch" which is an area of the belly which has fewer feathers so the birds warmth is passed to eggs. This brood patch forms just before breeding season and then disappears.

Most birds only start to incubate their eggs when the whole clutch has been laid. This is to ensure that all chicks will hatch at the same time, otherwise the bird would have to abandon brooding unhatched eggs to forage to feed those that she has. Incubation is between 13-14 days. When the female has laid its clutch she will start to sit on the eggs, they start to incubate when they reach the temperature of 37°C . The female will also turn the egg so they are warmed evenly.

The blue tit's feed their young almost exclusively on insect larvae, which are most abundant in early summer. Consequently, they generally put "all their eggs in one basket" by laying a single, large clutch of eggs.
Nestlings fledge after 18-19 days

Key Words:
Nestling - A bird too young to leave its nest:
Clutch - All the eggs that have been laid at one time.
Fledge - The stage when a bird has feathers and is strong enough to fly.
Incubate- To provide heat
Brood - Number of young hatched at the same time.