Hello! I have a little great tit who has been making a sweet nest in a terrifyingly dangerous place in my garden, about 1 metre 20 off the ground, close to where I have seen a rat, in the branches of some honeysuckle and ivy, and in fairly full view of any other predator. It is also within about 2 metres of my back door/window. I have jays who come into the garden, and there is not only my cat, but also the neighbour's cat when my dog doesn't chase it away fast enough. When we move into April, there will also be full sun on the nest for a couple of hours in the late morning. (There is not much sun yet, as there is a highish wall opposite the nesting place, so the sun needs to be a little higher in the sky to reach it. We already have a nesting box in the garden, and perhaps this little great tit making the nest hatched from it last year as the box was used twice and I think we had about 7 little great tits in all.
Yesterday, I quickly put up another nesting box at the bottom of the garden, in case she could be tempted to move.
What, do you think I should do? Protect it as best as I can with prickly plastic stuff? Go outside a lot and spend a bit of time there to put her off this dangerous spot, or leave her, and hope for the very best?
Thank you so much!
Alexandar
What I did last year was take a fat ball feeder and filled it with feathers, moss from the garden and cat hair from when I had groomed the cat. You can use dog hair as well but NOT human hair as it may wind around legs etc and cause serious damage. Try this and hang it away from the nest they are building, but birds will be birds and will nest where they want to! Good luck.