See how easy it is to learn about birds, as children at Peter Pan Pre-school Nursery in Woking, Surrey, did when they put a camera in a box on their grounds and observed a pair of nesting blue tits. Nursery owner Sue Lewis describes the learning experiences.

We had a fantastic couple of months last spring when we watched a pair of blue tits make a nest, lay eggs, hatch chicks and raise a brood with the aid of a camera in our bird box. The whole process was extremely interesting for the staff as well as for the children, and we hope to repeat it again this year.

'The nursery received a grant to improve the outdoor area and the staff team thought carefully about what we could do to help extend the children's learning and experiences in our nursery garden. We are fortunate to be located in the middle of woodland and we use it a lot, but we wanted to bring the children even closer to nature. We have bird feeders, but it is a real skill for the children to observe the birds because they have to be very quiet or they'll frighten them away. Purchasing a camera was seen as a great way to provide a real insight into the life of birds and allow us all to observe something that would normally be out of bounds.

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