Bird love platforms, i.e. nesting boxes and special platforms for birds, are intended to help the animals to breed. Every year, special structures are installed in Poznań to help birds find shelter. Do they have an effect?
Poznań attaches great importance to nature conservation, including activities directly related to the protection of plant and animal species. Every year, nesting boxes, among other things, appear on Poznan buildings and trees. Human activities lead to changes in the environment, which can sometimes disturb animal life. To compensate for these changes, replacement nesting sites are being created in the capital of Wielkopolska. Recently, 51 of them have arrived
Platforms of love on Szachtach
There are two bird structures on Poznan’s Szachtas. These are nesting platforms for terns. At the moment you can observe several of these birds, which will soon start breeding there
– Terns are expected as early as the end of next week. Special platforms have been installed on Szacht, where we expect up to a dozen pairs of these birds,” notes Samuel Odrzykoski, an ornithologist from the Poznan OTOP Group. – The rivers are regulated, so there is less and less natural habitat in the wild. Terns have started to nest in non-obvious places, e.g. on piers, buoys. These are often dangerous places for these birds.In many places, nesting platforms are built to imitate sandy islands, the natural nesting habitat of terns. Their bottoms are lined with gravel or sand and the whole is surrounded by netting to keep the chicks safe, he adds
A threat to terns is the removal of shallow areas and the destruction of emergent aquatic plants as well as the removal of groups of aquatic plants with floating leaves. The platforms make it possible for the birds to breed safely. It is a natural investment, the effects of which we can admire every year when we observe young chicks
The platforms were created thanks to the commitment of the Fabianowo-Kotowo Housing Estate Council in cooperation with the Urban Greenery Management. The birds will be able to be seen from the shore, from where there is a good view of the nests
Booths – for bird intimacy
Nesting boxes can be found in urban forests, parks and squares and on buildings. Before the bird breeding season begins, they are cleaned and repaired or replaced every year. Urban gardeners, together with foresters, also carry out constant observations to know whether the boxes are doing their job. This is easily seen when they are being cleaned. One example is at Szachty, where ornithologists checked 53 boxes, including 30 for titmice, 20 for starlings and three for tawny goldeneye. In most of them it could be seen that the birds were actually nesting in them or starting to build nests. The empty boxes had signs of overwintering bats. Hornet nests were found in two of them, and a goldeneye box was occupied by wasps
The bird nesting season has just started and the nest boxes will therefore be checked again. It is likely that tits have already appeared in some of them, but their presence will be 100 per cent ascertainable during the chick-feeding period, which is around the end of April. This will also be the optimum time for bird watching
Bird boxes, not cat boxes
When putting up a nest box or building another artificial nesting site, it is important to remember that you could accidentally create a death trap for birds. Domestic cats can decimate the population not only of these animals, but also of bats near our homes. In cities, wild predators such as house martens and polecats are also a threat. They can penetrate nest boxes in search of chicks. It is therefore advisable to ensure that the entrance hole is of sufficient diameter so that a predator cannot slip inside. The whole structure should be deeper, so that an attacking animal cannot reach the chicks. It is also a good idea to lengthen the vestibule and systematically clean the boxes and remove old nests. Most birds will build a new nest on top of the old one when they breed again, bringing the chicks closer to the entrance
source: Urban Greenery Management in Poznań / https://zzmpoznan.pl/
photos: Board of Urban Greenery in Poznań / https://zzmpoznan.pl/
Read also: Architecture in Poland | whiteMAD on Instagram | Ecology | Greenery | Places, Squares, Parks | Poznan
