After a long, and an exceptionally wet, January, there is a slight suggestion of spring in the air! Snowdrops and crocuses have emerged, adding much needed color to gardens and footpaths, the days are slowly getting brighter and longer, more birds are beginning to sing and I even saw my first dollop of frog spawn over the weekend.

For me, spring always feels like a hopefully time of year. Winter is coming to an end and the promise of future warm weather is fast approaching. For most wildlife however, spring is an extremely important and busy time of year.

During the spring most of our garden birds have to find and secure a mate, build a nest, lay eggs and then feed the hungry chicks. They may go on to have a couple more broods before the end of the breeding season so it really is all hands on deck!

Between 14 and 21 February it's National Nest Box Week, a campaign by the British Trust of Ornithology encouraging people to help out our feathered friends by putting up nesting boxes during this time. Officially the bird nesting season starts in March, but from around now birds are pairing up and looking for potential sites to start a family.

This is where we can come in to help out! If you have a bird box, now is the time to put them up in your garden, school or outdoor space at your office. If you haven’t got one, its actually quite simple to build your own. All you need is a plank of wood 15cm wide and about 1.5 meters long. This can be then cut into pieces following a simple plan that you can download from the RSPB website. Once the pieces are cut, they can simply be screwed together to create a perfect bird box! Don’t worry if it isn’t too neat or perfectly cut, in the wild, the birds would be using cracks in trees, so they don’t need it to be perfect.

Once finished, you want to put it up out the way of cats or other potential predators, and facing north east to avoid getting direct sunlight and getting too hot. Avoid having any branches or other clutter that can block the entrance to the box - though having some branches surrounding the box can be useful for when the chicks first start to venture outside.

Unfortunately, in just the last 50 years, we have lost over 38 million birds in the UK. Putting up a bird box can be one thing that we can do to help with this heartbreaking decline. It is fun to build with your friends or family and can be extremely satisfying when you see a bird start to use to it. We would love to see your bird boxes and any birds that use them so take some photos and send them into us on our social media!

For more advice on how to help wildlife at home, visit our Team Wilder webpage and record the action you are taking to help wildlife across Avon.