Damaged blue tit box

Good evening PPW16 and a warm welcome from me up in the very far north of Scotland, in Caithness. Which part are you from? That is a puzzler? Could it be a woodpecker, not sure. Someone on here will be able to help I am sure. We are a friendly lot, all doing the same thing, following the posts that you will see are excellent. Enjoy here.

Hello Catlady, many thanks for your reply! I'm along way from you, I'm in Canterbury, Kent. I'm a real novice bird watcher, but I love feeding and observing my birds. I wondered if it might be the woodpecker, but I wasn't sure they ate other birds

Reckon it could be a Great Spotted Woodpecker they will go through the side of a nest box to get at chicks.

Hi PPW16, looks like it could be the woodpecker. I had one in them garden for a quick visit on two occasions. Like you, I do enjoy watching and feeding and not forgetting learning about the birds in my garden. Have been on here for a year and a half and have learned so much from other folks, by posts and pictures. At the moment the Blackbirds have their young out on the lawn, they have a nest in one of the bushes. the Robin also has a nest in the garden, not quite sure where, but my great excitement was two weeks ago I noticed a blue tit with feathers in her beak going into a box I only put up a few months ago( present from christmas). This happened twice, saw them coming out one day but nothing since, but this morning they came out the box, so at least I know they are still there, hope there will be little ones! Can't wait. TTFN

Hi PPW,   as my fellow forumites have mentioned, it could be a Great Spotted Woodpecker that has drilled a hole through the box in the hope to gain access to eggs or chicks;   we have G.S.Woodpeckers in our garden and had 3 nest boxes destroyed 3 years ago (before chicks thankfully and only nesting material was pulled out).      We also have grey squirrels which will chew threw wood and eat eggs/chicks - occasionally, but I think more likely in your case it will be a Woodpecker.        Once you eventually take the box down at the end of nesting season (I take my boxes down at beginning October to clean them out)  a good tip for protecting boxes is as follows:

As you have done on your box, always add the metal entrance hole plate  and then you can staple quarter inch wire mesh to three sides of the box, wrapping it round (sides and underneath)  We have found this very successful in protecting the box and the birds inside and have not had any attacks on the boxes since and we have 13 of them !      Take a look HERE on a post about nest box protection:   it includes a link to a study carried out by Lancaster university on nest box protection  (It is a PDF file which you download) and will put photos of our protected nest box below.    Good luck and hope next year your boxes will be safe from attack.    

post edit:   I have attached the PDF file at the top of this post to make it easier.