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10-year-old Phoebe Pope has won our Swift drawing competition in collaboration with Bedfordshire Swift Group

Recently, we teamed up with Bedfordshire Swift Group to teach Leighton Buzzard primary school children about swifts and get them involved in a drawing competition around what they’d learnt.

Following a presentation to key stage two children at Beaudesert Lower School, we ran a drawing competition with Bedfordshire Swift Group for pupils who received the talk.

The competition invited the children to get creative and design their own version of this well-loved bird, based on what they’d learnt.

Our team and Bedfordshire Swift Group then judged the entries anonymously, and selected 10-year-old Phoebe Pope as the winner.

As a prize, Phoebe Pope was awarded her very-own art kit, and we have also donated £250 to the school to fund arts-related projects and supplies.

Alongside the talk and competition, we donated a swift nest box to the school, ready for when swifts return to the UK from their African wintering grounds in early May 2023. We already have nest boxes installed at Manor Heath, encouraging swifts to migrate to the area.

Kerry Jones, Sales and Marketing Director at Mulberry Homes, said: “We are thrilled to have teamed up with Bedfordshire Swift Group, and arranged these exciting activities for the children of Beaudesert Lower School.

“We hope that the pupils had a wonderful time learning about swifts. We’d like to thank all the children who entered our competition for their wonderful drawings, we received some brilliant entries and a huge congratulations go to Phoebe. Her entry showed an imaginative use of colour, while also demonstrating what she’d learnt from the talk.

“Supporting local wildlife is one of our core values at Mulberry Homes. Leighton Buzzard has a great swift population, and we are very proud to have raised awareness of this species. We take a lot of pride in installing nest boxes at our developments, and are delighted to be sharing our passion with the local community.”

Bedfordshire Swift Group is affiliated to the Bedfordshire Natural History Society. They aim to provide education on swifts across the county, encourage local people to take an active interest in their local swifts, and work to provide more nesting opportunities by putting up nest boxes. The group can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/604472066634744/.