Art and design students from the Forest of Dean have given the RSPB’s Nagshead reserve a natural lightshow for the rest of the summer.
Students from the Royal Forest of Dean campus of Gloucestershire College’s School of Art and Design made six multi-coloured windows, now hanging from trees at the reserve.
The expertly crafted windows are made of plastic and feature some of the plants and animals found at Nagshead. And visitors will be treated to a church-like lightshow in the woods, as sunlight shines through the recently installed windows.
Hannah Morton, the RSPB’s Gloucestershire reserves manager, said: “The art students produce something new each year, and it is getting better and better. The windows look fantastic and we hope it adds an extra dimension for people visiting the reserve.”
Katie Mullinger, curriculum leader for arts courses at the Royal Forest of Dean campus, said the students had loved designing and making the six windows.
She said: “For the students it is things like this that brings their education alive and we hope our windows give visitors to Nagshead the same pleasure.”
A giant mobile hanging in the Nagshead visitor centre, featuring birds and insects, was made by children at nearby Soudley Primary School, supervised by the same 17 and 18-year-old BTEC students who made the windows.
The windows will be hanging in the woods at Nagshead, in the Forest of Dean, until September. The visitor centre is open at weekends from 10am to 4pm and from 11am on Wednesdays during the summer holidays, when RSPB staff will be running pond dipping sessions.
The postcode for Nagshead is GL15 4JQ