First Ukrainian locality to join the celebration was Mariupol in 1924, as some of its citizens were active environmentalists. Kharkiv joined the event somewhat later, gradually followed by the rest of Soviet Ukraine. By the 1980s, the festival was forgotten, but Kyiv activists revived this tradition some years later. Members of the All-Ukrainian NGO “Living Planet” and the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center hang birdhouses on trees of the capital’s Holosiivsky Park. Activists also hold the Bird Welcoming Day contest, which involves children from across the country making birdhouses, installing them and writing reports about that. Authors of the best contributions receive valuable gifts.
Ukrainian cities are home to several dozen avian species, and most of them need a certain type of birdhouse. The Kyiv activists made birdhouses of four designs for the most widespread species this year. For instance, diamond-shaped houses with square openings at their tops will house tits, while square-shaped houses with top-placed entrances on the right side will attract redstarts who are colorful birds and beautiful singers. Funny athenes, little big-eyed owls, will prefer open birdhouses looking like birdfeeders.
REUTERS photo
The environmentalists installed a traditional birdhouse, with a circular entrance and gabled roof, in the park as well. Ukrainian nature lovers make most birdhouses according to this design, and often repeat the error of nailing “porches” to their entrances, out of a mistaken belief that it would ease jumping in for birds. “This is a lie! Such porches allow cats to sit on them, put their paws into birdhouses and take little nestlings out,” director of the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center Volodymyr Boreiko told us. Also, to save the birds from predators, activists hung birdhouses as high as possible. They are installed on the eastern side of the trees so that nestlings would not die from dampness and mold.
Birds need their wooden houses. Many species normally settle only in the hollows of old trees, but the latter are cut down in the cities. The only alternative for these birds is manmade birdhouses. The birds will start nesting soon, so let us humans hurry up to create a house for a tit or a redstart. Note that the birds will repay our good deeds in full with their songs.
