Active Birds Nest in Plant Machinery

Hello,

I'm looking for some advice please.

I work for a construction training company and we have recently discovered an active birds nest in one of our training machines.

What is the best way to deal with this? I'm just worried as we are due to start training on this machine next week and I don't want the birds coming to any harm.

  • Hello Zoe,    once a nest becomes active, even from the first nesting materials being placed then it becomes legally protected (under Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981).      The only advice I can give you is to suspend training until all birds have fledged,    You don't mention what type of machine it is or where it is situated but to be honest (unless you get special permission from the Brtish Trust for Ornithology to move the nest) you would be breaking the law to do anything to interfere with this active nest.      Maybe other forum members can give you further advice.      At least this reply will bump your question back to the top of the page.

  • Hi Hazel, thank you for your response.

    It is a 15 tonne excavator machine, from the picture I've been sent it looks like they are in the back of the machine - thankfully not where the engine is.

    The birds actually look quite big, so they may be due to fledge the nest soon. But I will keep an eye on them and suspend training until they are ready.
  • Hi Zoe, hopefully if the chicks are quite big then it shouldn't be long before they fledge and leave the nest so it is good that you can suspend training until then; in your circumstances I am sure the BTO would consider it ok (but you may have to check with them) to remove the empty nest once all the birds have left but under normal circumstances nests are still protected and not allowed to be taken away until end of breeding season, either end July or end August - I would have to check.