28 and 29 March: Bird Days at the Zoo

Every spring, Bird Days are held at Riga Zoo. This year, too, already this weekend, on 28 and 29 March, hammers will ring out in the traditional Woodpecker Workshop from 12:00 to 15:00, and, under the supervision of experienced zoo specialists, visitors will have the opportunity to learn how to make a nesting box for tits or starlings. In addition, visitors will be welcome to take the artificial nest box they have made with them and hang it in a suitable place near their home. This year, 300 nesting boxes are planned for small cavity-nesting birds—tits, sparrows and flycatchers—along with 300 artificial nesting sites for common starlings and 100 boxes for non-birds—the fat dormouse.

This year, spring has asserted its rights very early, and this has been widely announced—and continues to be announced—by both the peacocks at Riga Zoo, with their splendidly blooming tail fans, and the Japanese cranes, with their mischievous courtship dances and songs. Migratory birds are also gradually returning to their native lands and looking for suitable places to build their nests. Therefore, this is the last moment to make bird nesting boxes.

A special type of box—the artificial nesting site for the fat dormouse

Over the years, the Woodpecker Workshop has demonstrated the construction of artificial nesting sites for a wide variety of birds—from a nest foundation for storks, nest boxes for ducks and kestrels, and boxes for long-eared owls, tawny owls and the smallest owls, little owls, to boxes for two of our country’s most colourful birds, the European roller and the hoopoe, as well as more complex boxes for redstarts, in which cuckoos are also happy to lay their eggs. Shelters for bats have also been built. Now, in cooperation with the Latvian Environmental Protection Fund and Daugavpils University’s Nature Research and Environmental Education Centre (DU DIVIC), it is the fat dormouse’s turn.

The fat dormouse is rare and is included on Latvia’s list of specially protected species. It lives in southeastern Latvia, in Daugavpils Municipality, in the Silene Nature Park. This nocturnal rodent inhabits mixed coniferous forests with deciduous trees and a well-developed shrub layer. Hazel and oak trees are an integral part of forests inhabited by fat dormice. This year, under the auspices of DU DIVIC, a nature conservation plan for the fat dormouse is to be developed. As part of the project, 100 artificial nesting sites specially adapted for monitoring their occupants for research purposes will be placed in locations suitable for the fat dormouse.

By making a box for the fat dormouse at the Bird Days at the Zoo, every visitor will contribute to the study and conservation of this species. And when these little animals awaken from their winter sleep at the end of April, new and improved homes will be waiting for them.

Read more about the fat dormouse here: Latvijasdaba.lv on the fat dormouse and here: Nature Conservation Agency on the fat dormouse.

Bird Days will continue at “Cīruļi” after Easter—on 11 and 12 April.

This year, for the first time, the Zoo’s Bird Days will also be held at the “Cīruļi” branch of Riga Zoo—on 11 and 12 April.  Therefore, all those who do not manage to make a bird or fat dormouse box in Riga this weekend are warmly invited to Kalvene after Easter.