If you build it, they will come. If you’ve seen our advert on TV in the last week or so then you’ll know its somewhat of an RSPB mantra. If you make space in your garden, school or local park then it will, with the right encouragement, fill with nature.
Of course, it might be that as your empty hedgehog house awaits a resident, the slowly rotting wood and leaf matter instead attracts a range of strange and wonderful creepy crawlies. Don’t despair, it’s all nature and by attracting those insects you will in time attract birds and small mammals.
So, what is in your pond? Has anything moved into your nest box?
Let us know!
If you’ve been keeping an eye on our twitter feed then you’ll know that over the last few weeks our camera nest box has been filled with great tit chicks.
With 2 million pairs in the UK it’s a bird you’re very likely to get in a box in your garden and while common, it is still a really interesting bird.
Don’t believe me?
Well, they’re so successful partly because they are so adaptable. A staple food for young great tits are caterpillars, which begin to emerge according to temperature. Obviously this changes from year to year but great tits are able to time their nesting to coincide with the peak caterpillar crop, giving their brood the best possible chance.
There have also been reports of great tits breaking the caps off milk bottles to reach the cream, catching and eating bats, and even using conifer needles to extract larvae from holes in trees. They’re no birdbrains!
Get yourself down to Coombes to check out the camera box because they’ll be fledging in the next week or so. We’ll keep twitter updated.
It’s also Wild Art Weekend on the reserve this weekend so why not pop in to create some natural art with us? Running Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th, 11am-3pm. You can even make and decorate your own nest box!