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In 1996, staff of MKA Ecology re-formed the
South Cambridgeshire RSPB Wildlife Explorers
club (Fowlmere Bullfinches). A programme of monthly
events and field trips designed to give the children
a wide range of wildlife experiences has continued
ever since and membership numbers over 30 children.
Our office facilities and staff
time are used in the planning of events and the
production of materials for the members. In 2010,
the club won the “Wildlife Club of the
Year” national award.
We also work with the local primary schools
and have set up a bird-feeding station, a wildlife
pond and a reptile hibernaculum. We carry out
moth trapping days, bird watching days, bat days
and pond dipping sessions, whilst we also supply
bird food to Foxton School. Our staff work with
school groups surveying the adjacent countryside
to look for, and identify, birds and other wildlife.
Our school visits have been so successful that we are now offering this
as a service for schools further afield.
MKA Ecology has sponsored the local children’s
football team since its formation in 2009. DFFC
believe in the principle of providing sport for
all children and we like to think that our sponsorship
has helped them achieve their laudable aims.
To date we have sponsored all the teams formed
from the under 8’s to the under 10’s
and hope to continue to support this new club
as it goes from strength to strength.
- “Save our Sparrows” nestbox
scheme.
In 2009, we gave away 50 House
Sparrow nestboxes to houses within the local
community
to try and address the recent dramatic decline
of House Sparrow within the area. We continue
to monitor the success of the nestbox scheme.
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MKA Ecology are corporate members of the following
organisations which all help to provide community
based conservation initiatives further afield
of great value.
Closer to home, we are also corporate members of the Bat Conservation
Trust.
- Tree Sparrow Project and sponsorship.
We sponsored the Tree Sparrow
for the British Trust for Ornithology Bird Atlas
2007-11. This species was chosen on account of
our work at Beddington Farmlands, where we help
to manage the largest Tree Sparrow colony in
the south of England. We are also working closely
with the RSPB and interested parties to try and
develop a London Tree Sparrow Project which aims
to discover what is happening to the 7-900 young
which fledge from Beddington and then disperse
from the site each year.
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We supported this project through secondment
of a staff member to search for this globally
threatened species in January 2006. This formed
part of a co-ordinated survey of wintering sites
of the species. We also co-authored the report
on this project.
The World Pheasant Association (WPA) work globally
to protect the diversity of gamebirds and is
strongly involved in the remote Palas Valley
region of Pakistan. This area was devastated
by the recent earthquake in the region. WPA is
one of very few NGO’s working in the region
and their unique position enabled MKA Ecology
to work with them in September 2006 to deliver
blankets to the area. We donated resources to
collect, pack, weigh and deliver 1700 blankets
to Pakistan, as part of the relief effort for
the people of the Palas Valley.
From 1998-2009, staff at MKA Ecology initiated,
organised and ran a charity football competition
at the British Birdwatching Fair, Rutland Water.
Sponsored by Wildsounds, the competition involves
conservation bodies and NGO’s raised over £5000
for international conservation initiatives. Although
currently dormant, the cup may well rise again
in the near future!
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