Nestbox stories

Kezmo, I am sure some fledgelings must come into your garden at some time over the season. If he doesn't bother with birds now, I don't see why he would start just because the boxes are in your garden. In our experience the birds who fledge always seem to fly away from the garden, much to our chagrin.

We have several nest boxes around the garden, as we also have a good colony of House Sparrows that nest under our roof tiles I decided to build this sparrow terrace which has space for 5 families.

I am delighted to say that one of the boxes was used.................Mr & Mrs Great Tit were thrilled with their home!!!

Just goes to show that wildlife don't always read the rule book.

In reply to Brenda's question about what might have happened eventually, it's possible that they might have found their own way out. At some point the adults would probably have reduced the feeding rate to try and budge the chicks into shifting, and perhaps they'd have blundered their way out of the loft. But then you've got to hope they'd go the right way through the house, that the right window was open and that the learner-flyer swallow would not brain themselves flying into the glass. I don't think the chances of an accident-free fledging were all that high.

Having looked closely at the chicks in hand and seen that their flight feathers were fully developed I judged that it would be best to move the nest to a more easily accessible position. If the chicks weren't really ready to fledge I think they'd have stayed in their nest, inside the soup bowl, on the windowsill where I'd put them. There's no doubt in my mind the adults would have carried on feeding them to fledging in the new location since they were used to using that window to get inside the house.

Had the nest been in a more normal location (e.g. inside the porch entrance) I would simply have told the site manager that he couldn't touch the nest until the young fledged - exactly the advice we give dozens of people every spring, in fact, in order to comply with the Wildlife & Countryside Act!

Thank you Colin, for your reply. So glad you were able to help. This is the side of the RSPB and people like you, we just do not hear about.

Hi KatTai

Bless your heart! I'm not being patronising but you haven't seen our cat - he's 8 kilos of ginger feistiness!  The last time I tried to keep him in, it was got to about 2am in the morning when we were woken by a loud crash and bang - went downstairs to investigate to find the cat looking rather miffed wearing the cat flap around his neck like a necklace -  Although you have given me an idea, in the warmer months he's does like to sleep quite a bit so i could I think limit him to where he wanders.

Norfolk Dipper - I love your nest boxe(s) - and it's great that it has been a success.  How do you clean it out tho, I'm not one for heights and the OH is even worse than me (not sure I should have admitted that on the forum!).  Can you take yours completely off its bracket or do you have to clean it in situ?

Brenda H - Your'e right he isn't that bothered but it's the sound to be honest that gets him interested mostly.  When he hears the sounds of the young birds that's when the cat starts mooching about to see where it is coming from.  Although he doesn't react as such to the birds in the garden, I've seen him stalking mice in the undergrowth purely on the sound they make and that's what makes me worry that he would just sit there under the nest just waiting for one to come out.

In truth rather than worry about something that hasn't happened yet, I could just give it a try couldn't I - if the birds felt threatened by the cat, the worst that could happen is they wouldn't use the nest box.

:-)

Kezmo, sorry, but OH and I have just roared laughing about the cat flap necklace on the 8 kilo ginger.  

Unknown said:

Norfolk Dipper - I love your nest boxe(s) - and it's great that it has been a success.  How do you clean it out tho, I'm not one for heights and the OH is even worse than me (not sure I should have admitted that on the forum!).  Can you take yours completely off its bracket or do you have to clean it in situ?

:-)

That's easy..................

You walk upstairs with a screwdiver and open the bathroom window, lean out of window , undo two screws and jobs a good un.

Ideally this sort of nest box should be located just below the eaves, but as we live in quite an old cottage there wasn't space above the window.

Great stories so far, keep them coming!

Thought i would mention a few of the weird and wonderful nest site locations that i have come across in my time here at the RSPB wildlife enquiries team!

Off the top of my head i can remember blue tits nesting in wall mounted ashtrays, mistle thrushes in traffic lights, pied wagtails in tractor engines and robins in just about anything you can think of including flat footballs, tool tidies, hanging baskets and hard hats!

Birds can be incredibly resourceful!

Ian H said:

Great stories so far, keep them coming!

Thought i would mention a few of the weird and wonderful nest site locations that i have come across in my time here at the RSPB wildlife enquiries team!

Off the top of my head i can remember blue tits nesting in wall mounted ashtrays, mistle thrushes in traffic lights, pied wagtails in tractor engines and robins in just about anything you can think of including flat footballs, tool tidies, hanging baskets and hard hats!

Birds can be incredibly resourceful!

My favourite strange nest site is the robins that apparently nested in a human skull when they used to hang people and leave them out to deter others from committing crimes...What a nest site if that is true!