The Norwich Nuthatches’ March meeting was all about the RSPB’s projects in other countries. Could you name a bird just by its silhouette? This was the first challenge of the morning. Some were quite easy such as the wren, nuthatch and starling. Others we could only narrow down to the group of birds they belonged to like the hawk, woodpecker and owl. Then there were those that were really hard – until John told us there was a twist: the silhouettes were not British birds but some of their American cousins. Now that’s not playing fair!
Our next challenge was to find as many rainforest animals that had been hidden in the woods at Strumpshaw Fen as we could. We found seven poison dart frogs and two tigers. The frogs were easy to find as they were brightly coloured red and blue and printed on pieces of square paper. The tigers were harder to find as they were orange and black and had also been cut round so they had curvy edges. John explained that there aren’t many straight lines in nature; everything has curves which means they blend into each other, just like tiger stripes.
Next we talked about the work the RSPB does abroad. It helps more than 60 projects all over the world, helping other countries to protect their wildlife. For example, there is important work being done in the Sumatran rainforest in Indonesia. Here, much of the rainforest is being replaced with oil palm trees to meet international demand, as palm oil is used to make many of the things we have in our homes. The RSPB is working with locals to protect their native trees, which their wildlife relies on for food and shelter. Most of us had also heard of the Save the Albatross campaign that aims to help fishermen catch fish in a way that will not hurt these wonderful birds. The albatross has one of the largest wingspans of any bird – up to an amazing 3.5 metres! To get a feeling of just how long that is we stuck together pieces of paper until we had the same length and it surprised many of us!
Our final challenge was a competition to think about how the design of a bird’s wings affects the way it flies. So taking our inspiration from nature we had to make three different kinds of paper aeroplane: one designed for distance, one for time in the air and the last for style in the sky! It became very competitive – and that was just the parents!! We had some wonderful planes and of course the last thing to do was to test them, and many of them proved to be very impressive.
Remember that it is not just in the UK that the RSBP is helping wildlife. If we all work together we can really make a difference and help to protect the world’s wildlife. After all, who wants to live in a world without tigers and albatrosses – I know I don’t.
Written by Melanie Beck, Norwich Nuthatches Assistant Leader.