Last year students from St Mary’s RC High School, Leyland made 30 bird boxes for Astley Park. The construction materials were supplied by the Friends, paid for by grants. Chorley North West Ward Councillor Aaron Beaver kindly gave £300 from his Community Grant fund. The same amount was also generously donated by Astley Village Parish Council.
The bird boxes were made to a design approved by the RSPB. Most significantly they incorporate a metal plate around the access hole. This is so the hole can’t be made any larger by squirrels or woodpeckers. This means the boxes remain ideally suited to small birds such as wrens, blue tits and great tits. The boxes were installed in the autumn of 2024 on suitable trees in the Park’s woodlands by Chorley Council Rangers – as shown below.
Twenty students from across all age groups made the boxes in their after-school club, supervised by Technology teacher Mrs Sales. Each of the boxes are numbered according to which student made them. Recently, six of the children involved came to visit the Park accompanied by their teachers and were shown the bird boxes installed in Great Wood by Friends volunteers. It had been hoped that installing the boxes last autumn would give time for the local bird life to become accustomed to their presence and roost or nest in them. So it proved, as many of the boxes seen by the students were clearly in use on the day of their visit, with birds viewed regularly flitting in and out.
Friends of Astley Park 