Valentine’s Day this weekend marks the start of National Nest Box Week. Running for almost 30 years, this campaign encourages members of the public to put up nest boxes to compensate for the loss of natural nesting holes due to our habit of tidying up gardens, blocking holes in roofs and outbuildings and cutting down older trees because they might pose a danger. It coincides with the time when birds start scoping out boxes as suitable for raising this year’s brood. Today I watched a Great Tit poking its head into the hole of the nest box on our big ash tree.
Little birds, whose only defence is flight, always approach potentially dangerous situations with great caution so the Great Tit only checked out the entrance to the box on this first visit. Once it knows that it is safe, it will actually enter the box to assess its suitability, but that step may take several visits. Many wild creatures are neophytes – wary of anything new in their environment – and birds are no exception. It is for this reason that a nest box may not be used the first year that it is put up. People often assume that they have put the box in the wrong place, or that it is the wrong sort of box, but more often than not it is just the birds’ innate distrust of anything new and the following year they successfully use it to raise a family.
If you can, site your nest box where you can see the entrance hole and you will observe the change in activity from nest building to brooding to feeding the hatchlings and, if you are lucky, you will even catch the first tentative flight of the fledglings from the box.
Rachel Hickley, HGN Admin
Photo credit: Pied Flycatcher on nest box at RSPB Nagshead © David Cramp.
