Spreading wings at St Stithians
RANDBURG – Pupils from St Stithians Boy's Preparatory School are treated to a wild rehabilitation programme for sparrow hawks.
Pupils from St Stithians Boys Preparatory School have been given the unique opportunity to look after baby sparrow hawks. The initiative at school has been supported by environmental company EcoSolutions.
Ecosolutions is an environmental company that specialises in finding innovative and cost-effective solutions to environmental concerns in urban areas.
A representative from Ecosolutions Jonathan Hall spoke about the sparrow hawk care project at St Stithians Boy’s Preparatory School.“Ecosolutions is extremely proud to assist the school with these types of projects. These care projects are usually geared toward caring for owls, but we are now extending it to other things like sparrow hawks. It’s basically a three dimensional educational programme. The children get involved in feeding and identifying these animals,“ he said.
Hall pointed out that these projects are of great benefit to the animals and the local urban environment. “All these birds are releasable. Instead of just taking them out to the Kruger Park, we release them back into urban environments with the children’s help. These species of sparrow hawks originally come from Johannesburg. To put them back into this environment is the right thing to do,” he said.
Grade 3 teacher and grade director at the school Jenny Dryden explained the pupils’ participation in the project. “Our pupils are very interested in the care programme. We let the Grade 3 pupils participate. Each class had a turn to feed the sparrows. Different children have had a turn to feed the hawks every day. The pupils love taking care of the sparrow hawks. They have been very passionate about making sure that they are well fed and looked after. We make sure to feed the hawks very early in the morning. The pupils are really that committed and there is a lot of enthusiasm,” she said.
Dryden pointed out that birds are not the only animals that St Stithians has released into their expansive campus grounds but also other indigenous animals like chameleons and owls. “We also have chameleons down at the school’s vegetable garden,” she said.
Grade 5 pupil Devan Williams is proud of being involved in such a wonderful initiative “It’s really amazing taking care of these hawks, no other school does this and it’s a nice environment for the animals,” he said.
