NATURE reserve birds have new homes thanks to a project to involve youngsters in looking after their environment.

Young people from Quarrington Hill worked with Durham City Council's Single Regeneration Budget community team and Durham County Council's countryside team to build about 40 bird boxes for the village's Crow Trees Nature Reserve.

The boxes will provide homes for flycatchers, tits and tree sparrows.

Quarrington Hill Youth Project members, who were involved in making the bird boxes, are working with residents on Whitbread's Action Earth campaign.

They have helped reinstate pit ponds, which are home to great crested newts and sticklebacks, and removed rubbish from around the site.

For details of future activities at the Crow Trees Nature Reserve, contact Tina Wiffen on 0191-518 2823, or Ian Armstrong on 0191-386 4411.