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Seeing Adrians post on his boxes remined me I had two jobs to do this weekend.
Clean the house martin poo from the porch roof and the alarm box on the front of the house before they arrive back, hopefully.
Then put up the box I was given for christmas between the current two old nests.
I guess it will take a season or two for them to take to the new box but here's hoping. Although the House Martins make a real mess on the house feel very priveliged to have them choose our house. Still its good for the plants below, there's always an upside.
Nothing yet, all gone quiet.
Tony do you clean your nest boxes out at the end of the season with boiling water? was told to do that with this new one l have, l always just took the old nest out and lift it to stay there over winter, especailly after finding a mouse using for the winter, but they are not looking too happy and no birds use them like before, they say you do this to get rid of parasites ect. what do you think? from Yas
Jas, yes I do clean out the boxes each year, give them an airing, not used boiling water though...when I remember but must admit did not do so this year. Never touched the HM nests though, really dont know if this is a good idea to try and clean them out or not.
Lots of nice boxes there Tony, hope you have lots of success and let us know all about the young ones
Think I was a little late in getting these boxes in place, blue tits looked at the box from outside but have not seen any go in. As for the robin box no interest at all yet. We have spagers in two boxes and the HM been back to look at one of 3 nests but now disappeared again.
After initially seeing 3 HM flying around the house on Apr 17th with two checking out nest one they all then disappeared. Thurs this week May 5th about 6 are now flying around our house with two definitely in nest 1, no signs yet of action in nest 2 or the new artificial nest 3. Our neighbours across the drive have 4 nests with action at 3 of them so I am going to include them in the BTO HM site survey having asked them yesterday if I could wander around the garden to check the nests out.
I hope to post some pics this weekend as I have had my remote cam on the roof of the porch pointing at nest 1.