Hello
I'm new here.... recently took early retirement and enjoying life immensely. part of that is watching the wildlife in our back garden and in particular, encouraging birds to visit, feed, and hopefully nest!
Our garden isn't huge - about 40ft square - and is enclosed on all 3 sides to the back of our house by a tall (approx. 3.5 metres) leylandii hedge. Not only does this provide us with lots of privacy, it also provides shelter, food and hopefully a nesting site for birds and wildlife. Our neighbour on one side has now asked us to halve the height of thee hedge. (It suited her while she had kids at home kicking a football about in the back garden - but now they have left she is more or less demanding we cut this back).
I believe that not only will this kill the hedge, it would also be very detrimental to the wildlife and environment. Not only that, we also have a tit cote about 2 feet from the hedge that is hexagonal and has a box on each side. The boxes have seen a great deal of activity over the last fortnight that I can only assume is the blue and great tits sussing out the suitability of our cote as a potential home to nest and rear their babies!
I'm no expert, but having read up on a few sites I do know that it is illegal to cut hedges where birds are or may be nesting - does anyone know if this rule might also be applied to a site (for example, the tit cote) which is very close to the hedge as well?
Many thanks in advance!
Karen