Hi everyone,
First post here! I moved to a cottage in a countryside last winter, and I started putting feeders outside a month ago, with great success. I recently bought a bird nest box and a squirrel box. I regularly see red squirrels and to be honest I don’t mind them occasionally getting to the bird food (please disregard the DYI apple feeder, that was a failed experiment! And apologies for the poor quality picture, it’s taken from the inside)
The two boxes are shown in the red circle (bird on the left, squirrel on the side). I have a few questions/worries:
- I am quite short and don’t have a ladder, plus there’s a small river going under that slope (it was already hard enough to place them where they are without falling in the burn!). Height-wise, that’s the best I could do (must be between 1.5 and 1.8 m from grounds but as you can see it has a ‘heap’ in front of it too). Is that too low? Should I ask a tall friend to help me move them higher up?
- is it ok to put them close to each other? I’ve just bought a 25mm protector for the nest box (many blue tits so the box is intended for them), will that be enough?
- Are they too ‘exposed’, weather- and -sight wise? That spot gets its fair amount of wind an rain, but to be honest I don’t see many other options (at any rate, not one that would also be in my eyesight from my window…)
- Anything else I can do to encourage nesting?
Any comments/feedback would be greatly appreciated. If needed I can take a better picture tomorrow.