Howbery Business Park to keep a look-out for birds

Howbery Business Park has pledged to focus on birds during its second year taking part in a biodiversity scheme. In its first year, the park championed bumblebees, completing the necessary criteria by October to earn its first petal of the Nurture Biodiversity Award.

To enhance conditions for birds on the park and earn its next petal, Howbery will have to meet a set of objectives set by Nurture Landscapes (which maintains its grounds) in conjunction with the British Trust for Ornithology. The grounds team will be working on a set of initiatives that include adding more bird boxes, bird feeding and monitoring stations, and ensuring that there are plentiful berries and grains for birds to feed on in Howbery’s grounds.

When Howbery completes this year’s objectives, the British Trust for Ornithology logo will be inscribed on the blank petal of a flower-shaped award, joining that of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. Howbery will then pick another area of biodiversity to focus on for the following year, such as butterflies, insects, amphibians or wildflowers. There are six petals to complete in total.

“Encouraging biodiversity is very important to Howbery Park,” Howbery Park Estates Manager Donna Bowles explained. “We are committed to cherishing our beautiful landscape to the benefit of wildlife and people. We were thrilled to make a difference to bumblebees last year and are excited to now concentrate on birds.”

“We already know there is a rich variety of birdlife in the park and on the bordering stretch of the Thames, including woodpeckers, red kites, spotted flycatchers, nuthatches and an occasional kingfisher, and we want to make sure conditions are right here and enable as many species as possible to thrive,” said Nurture’s Business Development and Biodiversity Manager Simon Blackley.

“The aim of Nurture’s scheme is to improve biodiversity in small, manageable steps, and we are starting to see the differences that these actions can make. Birds are important to biodiversity for many reasons – they spread seeds, control pests, clean-up road-kill and give early warnings about the planet.”