IT IS now generally accepted that many dates in the Christian calendar were set in or around the third century AD by priests who placed them close to ancient pagan dates so that early converts would not miss traditional celebrations.

Thus the mid-winter solstice became Christmas, and Easter the spring equinox.

How St Valentine’s Day got its place is said to be on the day when birds began their annual mating practices – hence the connection with courtship and love – but I suppose that was fixed in Rome rather than a flood-stricken Great Britain.

Although we in the Dales have escaped (touch wood) the horrors of Southern England, the non-stop rain since Christmas must have dampened any avian ardour and the violent winds of last week must have made flying a problem, never mind any canoodling.

It is, however, not too late for gardeners and allotment holders to extend a warm heart to our hard-pressed feathered friends for we are just reaching the end of the British Trust for Ornithology’s (BTO) National Nest Box Week, which has been launched every year since 1997 on St Valentine’s Day.

Putting up nest boxes does more than provide welcome dry and safe shelter for breeding birds, says the BTO. It allows people to easily record simple facts like eggs laid and chicks hatched for their national bird watch scheme which allowed the to build up a huge database charting the fluctuations in our bird life.

These statistics are vital for the future because they allow ornithologists to suggest future programmes for preserving this and other wildlife. On the down side, it revealed the sharp and mysterious decline in house sparrow and starling numbers. On the bright side, it has shown that private gardens have become a life-saving sanctuary for millions of song birds driven from the countryside by disasters like the one above.

So show a bit of love for your feathered friends and put up a nesting box or two. For information how to do it, see www.bto.org/about-birds/national-nest-box-week.