When we had our hedge planted in 1993, we decided to get some bird tables and nesting boxes. Karen's dad, Johnny Halligan, is a carpenter and he cut out a nesting box. The pupils in fifth and sixth class nailed it together. Our caretaker, Padraig Harney put it up in a tree; a bluetit nested there. We put the bird tables outside our classroom window and near the hedgerow.

We wanted to attract seed-eating birds like the bullfinch, greenfinch, chaffinch and the sparrow.

We don't use any weedkiller in our garden because if we use something like Slugfox the birds eat the slugs and they die too.

In Autumn, 1996, we got involved in Erin Bird-watch. We hung a bird chart up inside the window and recorded the birds that come to our bird tables.

Every morning we fed the birds with nuts, seeds and sometimes fat. If we keep feeding the birds they will keep coming back to nest in the nesting boxes in Spring and eat the greenfly on the roses in Summer.