Nestbox stories

At our last house we had a large outbuilding next to the house where we stored everything in boxes that we couldn't find a proper place for. One of these boxes contained some silver cups (sports trophies ... don't ask ... long story!!) A pair of robins took a liking to these silver trophies and used the largest one as a nest. Despite us coming and going all the time because our utility room was through this building, the robins raised their babies successfully. There was an old broken cat flap in the door to this building, which is how they got in and out. We missed the fledging unfortunately, but the trophy needed a jolly good clean afterwards!

Hello KatTai and Sparrow,

Some great nestbox stories.  I am sure this thread will undoubtedly be added to as Spring arrives. Has anyone experienced seeing birds using nestboxes throughout the autumn and winter?

Nestboxes are often used by birds such as Blue tits and wrens as this time of year to roost in, so do keep an eye out!

Hi,

This story is only loosely connected with nestboxes, but as the birds in question were nesting inside a house I hope you'll agree this is worth telling...

My job with the RSPB includes advising lots of developers on how to avoid disturbing breeding birds during the nesting season, in order to comply with the law. A few years back, one June afternoon, I got a call from a housebuilder in a village just down the road from the office. He said he'd got swallows nesting in one of his new houses, and it was a problem because the house was almost completed and sale contracts were being signed, but could he close up the house and pass over the keys while these swallows were in place?

Normally I wouldn't have time to do a site visit for this sort of thing but as it was only a couple of miles away I drove out there before office hours the following morning. I am so glad because I would never have believed this second-hand...

I arrived, and stood looking at this nice new 4-bed 'executive' home. It looked complete from the outside, so I couldn't figure out where these swallows would be nesting to cause such problems... The site manager arrived, he led me inside the house, upstairs and up the loft ladder into the roof space. The nest turned out to be located on top of the apex roof beam, 10 feet up above the loft floor right in the very peak of the house. Clearly, the swallows had begun nesting while the roof beams were semi-open to the sky, then the rest of the roof had been closed up, shutting them in.

The really amazing thing was that the adults just carried right on feeding the young - except now they entered the house through an open bedroom window on the first floor, flew across the room, out into the upper landing, down the length of the landing and up through the open loft hatch - then back along the length of the pitch-dark loft to reach the nest!!!

The house was full of painters and electricians putting the finishing touches to the interior. One man was painting the back of the bedroom door the swallows were using to get into the hall. When he pushed it closed to finish the job the swallows just switched round to the opposite side of the house and came in through a different bedroom.

Anyway, the outcome of this was that I asked for a ladder, went up into the loft and had a close look to see how far developed the two swallow chicks were. They were fully feathered, and I figured that they should already have fledged - except they couldn't see anywhere to fly to!

I took a bit of a chance and brought the whole nest, with two chicks in it, down to first floor level (carried in a soup bowl!) and set them on the bedroom window sill. It was (fortunately) a bright summer's morning outside. With the adults flying up and down just outside the window, both chicks promptly fledged right in front of our eyes and joined them outside, in the space of about a minute.

Jennifer T said:

Hello KatTai and Sparrow,

Some great nestbox stories.  I am sure this thread will undoubtedly be added to as Spring arrives. Has anyone experienced seeing birds using nestboxes throughout the autumn and winter?

Nestboxes are often used by birds such as Blue tits and wrens as this time of year to roost in, so do keep an eye out!

Yes, where I used to live the boxes were only ever used for roosting in, never to nest in though a wren did attempt to build a nest in one.  If I remember rightly, it was mainly blue tits but I think the wren, coal and great tits also used the boxes for roosting in.  There was one pair of great tits that spent time roosting in one box but they never nested there.

Colin - amazing story!

Colin - what an incredible story. It is amazing what creatures can do to overcome obstacles. We can learn a lot from them.

I have a new 3-hole sparrow terrace on the back of my house. I haven't seen any interest from my colony of sparrows, but plenty of interest from the blue tits. They investigate it quite a lot, and I am hoping for more than investigation in the spring.

That's a fabulous story Colin!!

Fantastic story Colin but I can't help asking, what would have happened if you hadn't assisted these birds? Maybe they would have followed their parents in time.

Hi Colin,

What an amazing and brilliant story ! thanks to you the fledglings had a chance.  Thumbs up to the developer who made the effort to contact the RSPB - it could have ended up very differently.  It has brought a smile to my face, thanks for that :-)

I would love to put up nestboxes but I worry about our cat.  He doesn't really go for birds but would he if he saw unskilled fledglings leaving the nest.  I couldn't live with myself if he managed to get one.

Unknown said:

I would love to put up nestboxes but I worry about our cat.  He doesn't really go for birds but would he if he saw unskilled fledglings leaving the nest.  I couldn't live with myself if he managed to get one.

You could always just let him out when you can watch him when the chicks are fledging?  Or (depending on the size of your garden) you could build him an outdoor cat-run so he can be outside without posing a risk to the birds.  That way you can have a happy cat and safe chicks hopping around (the chicks hopping around, not the cat!)