Barn Owl visits Pre-Prep
19/01/2012
The children (and staff) were the recipients of a mid-week treat yesterday when Chris Sperring MBE (Conservation Officer of the Hawk and Owl Trust as well as presenter on Spring Watch, Autumn Watch and broadcaster on Radio 4) brought along a barn owl named Beau to meet us. Beau is a 12 year old owl who has visited over 200 schools in her lifetime helping children learn about owls.
Chris delivered a lively and informative talk, which included lots of interaction with the children, who impressed him greatly with their existing knowledge of habitats, food chains and general wild life knowledge.
He is currently involved in a project that aims to erect a Barn Owl Box in every parish in Somerset to try to increase the Barn Owl population, which is sadly in decline.
As we all waved farewell to Chris and Beau the children were certainly buzzing with ideas for erecting a Barn Owl Box within the school grounds and eager to make sure the edges of all of the fields are kept long in order to attract Beau’s favourite foods!
Chris was also very interested in both our Forest School and in our WildLife Hide and we have invited him back in the near future to hopefully get involved with this part of our curriculum.