MORE than 600 pupils from five local schools have taken part in a spectacular Bird's Eye View event organised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds at the Radipole Lake nature reserve in the heart of Weymouth.
The children held aloft white squares of cardboard and stood in the Swannery car park where they formed the shape of a common tern, a marine bird that returns every spring to breed on the RSPB reserves at Radipole and Lodmoor.
RSPB Radipole Lake visitor centre manager Nick Tomlinson said: "The last week in May is the RSPB's Wake up to Birds Week, a time to celebrate our wonderful bird life and we wanted to do something really special this year to tell the people in Weymouth about one of our great success stories.
"The common tern is a beautiful seabird, wintering in West Africa and returning to the United Kingdom in late spring.
"The breeding tern colony at Lodmoor is one of just a handful on the south coast.
"Terns started to breed here in 1998 when six pairs raised 11 chicks. Since then numbers have grown until last year when 45 pairs raised nearly 90 young."
The tern colony is extremely easy to see from a new viewing area at Lodmoor and the Bird's Eye View event will be followed up on Saturday with a special day when RSPB reserve staff will show people the birds through telescopes at the site.
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