Urgent advice needed - Coal Tits in nesting box

Hello!

We had coal tits nesting in a wooden bird box, the entry hole is a bit big so it's surprising they nested in there. Unfortunately we found 1 dead chick on the ground and 2 dead chicks in the nesting box, but it now seems abandoned by the parents and hopefully other fledglings. I was expecting to find egg shells, I found none.

The chicks inside the box were covered in maggots and ants so I cleared it out and put the box back, but reading various pages I discovered that this may have been a bad idea. Should I pick the maggots out of the nesting material and put the nesting material back in the box? Is it likely that any of the coal tits would return to the box?

Doing the research, we're either going to have to modify this nest box to make the entry hole smaller or buy a new one altogether.

Thanks in advance

  • Thanks for the response!

    I ended up panicking before anyone responded and put all the nesting back, minus the maggots and dead chicks!

    I would have thought if ants could get to it where it is now, then there's probably no where I could move it to, to make it ant safe! I think the dead chicks attracted them

    We will of course clear it out but I read that I shouldn't do so until September?

    We wasn't expecting coal tits or maybe they were blue tits, the hole is quite large and we feel guilty that they were probably vulnerable to predators.

  • I have a similar nestbox in my garden which is designed for robins.
  • We do want to attract coal/blue tits, but we didn't expect them to start nesting in this box! After the box was filled up with best material, it isn't as deep on the inside but you might be right that it was still maybe too deep. There was 3, maybe 4 dead chicks so I can only hope that means that several others managed to leave the nest.

    I think we'll replace the box for next year with a smaller hole. Do you suggest hanging it from a branch because of the ants or because of another reason? I'm not certain if it got too hot but it is shaded from the sun fairly well I think. The afternoon sun does point on the other side of the fence. I will test if it's hot on the next sunny day. It would only get sunshine on it through the tree a bit in the first half of the day