We have five blue tit chicks that have been killed by a sparrow in their nest. Do we clear out the nest and dead chicks and then clean the nest box or do we have to leave everything, if so for how long.
I can tell you we are gutted. We went out this morning and all was well, the sparrow had made a few attempts to get in but mother had sent him away (we had sent him away too), he has obviously come back whilst parents are out food gathering and attacked the chicks. We have arrived back from our walk to carnage!!!
Hi Jackson, welcome to the forum.
Sorry to hear about the mortality of the young Blue Tits.
Just to give you a bit of my background, I'm a nest recorder and have over 300 boxes that I anually check.
Predation is quite common on some of my sites,.
My advice would be to empty the nest and dead birds from the box, it would be also be advisable to put a nest box plate over the existing hole.
Ideally if you are attracting Blue Tits then the hole needs to be 35mm, any larger allows predation. A plate saves the expense of a new box.
The following link shows you exactly what I'm refering to
http://www.birdfood.co.uk/products.php?area_id=2&nav_id=42
They are available from lots of places, so have a shop aroud.
Hope this helps!
Regards Buzzard
Nature Is Amazing - Let Us Keep It That Way
Thank you so much for the advice it really was aprpciated. We did remove the chicks yesterday as they were already attracting flies. We shall now remove the nest and clean the box. Thank you also for the link to enable us to locate a new plate and the size required. Hopefully we shall have better luck next time.
Thanks again.
Ellen