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Cambridgeshire owners of new homes encouraged to help our feathered friends




Great and Blue Tit Feeding
Great and Blue Tit Feeding

Moving into a new home? Then you can help wildlife move in with you. New homeowners across Cambridgeshire are being urged to lure birds into their garden by Barratt and David Wilson Homes.

Father and son examining birdhouse
Father and son examining birdhouse

They have got together with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) to offer advice on how residents can give nature a home.

Jackie Day, sales director at David Wilson Homes South Midlands, said: “The top tips we have chosen are all fun activities that the whole family can enjoy, creating new memories in their new homes as well as a haven for birds to visit.”

1 Provide plenty of food. With the frosty weather in full force and the ground often frozen, it can be hard for birds to find their own food or water. Lay on a good supply of water and food to entice them, including seeds and suet, which can be put in a bird feeder or on a roofed bird table. The RSPB suggests putting a ping-pong ball in the supply of water to stop it from freezing. Make sure to top up your bird feed and water supply regularly and keep your feeders clean so that the birds will keep coming back.

2 Create a ‘sparrow street’. Introduce a nestbox into your garden for house sparrows to raise their chicks. The UK population of house sparrows has halved in recent years, so the RSPB is encouraging people to build sparrow boxes and put them up in their gardens. Sparrows like to have their friends nearby, so why not encourage a colony by building a ‘sparrow street’ and putting a row of them together?

Blue Tit (Parus caeruleus)
Blue Tit (Parus caeruleus)

3 Plant a tree in your garden. They offer song perches, nesting sites and safe retreats, so are a perfect way to bring wildlife to your home. Apple trees are a perfect choice for those with less room.

Alison Raine, sales director at Barratt Homes Northampton, said: “As a leading housebuilder, we want to work closely with our residents to ensure our British wildlife is preserved at our developments as this is extremely important to us.

“Birds are absolutely mesmerising in their behaviours and this is something that, as a nation, we should be able to appreciate more. We hope these tips will help to encourage wildlife into people’s gardens and give birds a home this season.”

Barratt and David Wilson Homes announced their partnership with the RSPB in 2014. With 56 per cent of plants and animals in decline, and as the country’s urban wildlife struggles, the partnership between the major housebuilders and the conservation charity will help to give nature a home in new-build developments.

David Wilson Homes South Midlands has homes available at Great Pastures, Huntingdon (three, four and five bedrooms from £249,995), Buttercross Park, Whittlesey (three- and four-bedroom homes from £196,995) and Romans’ Edge, Godmanchester (three, four and five bedrooms from £302,995).

Barratt Homes Northampton is also building homes at Romans’ Edge: four-bedroom properties start from £345,995.

Visit dwh.co.uk or barratthomes.co.uk.

For more on the RSPB, go to rspb.org.uk.



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