Boxes for birds and bugs

At the end of January we made bug homes and bird boxes with our Young Naturalists. They took their bug homes away with them but the bird boxes have since been put up on the reserve by volunteer Brenda who monitors them throughout the nesting season. The past couple of years we have enjoyed spending a session with Brenda and helping out with the nest box monitoring, and we are looking forward to doing the same again this spring.

They particularly enjoyed using Geoff’s bench drill to drill the holes in the bug homes and his pyrography kit to decorate both them and the bird boxes.

Their finished bug homes and bird boxes looked great and I’m sure the birds and bugs will appreciate them.

As we were building the boxes we were distracted by the kingfisher which has been frequenting the pond behind the Education Centre. Best viewed from inside, they enjoyed taking photos through the windows and viewing it through binoculars.

Watching the kingfisher

New member Issy managed to take some great photos:

Kingfisher by Issy Fry

Kingfisher by Issy Fry

Our woodwork filled session would not have been possible without the huge efforts of volunteer Geoff, who pre-cut all the bug home and bird box kits and provided all the tools and fixings including the bench drill and pyrography kit. The group do really enjoy building things and it’s great to see how much those who are now on their second or third box building session have grown in confidence. Thank you Geoff!

We also found time during the session once again take part in the Big Garden Bird Watch, visiting the Woodland Hide for the fourth year in a row. Our records were definitely not as numerous as previous years and we recorded 14 species and 32 birds altogether: 8 chaffinch; 3 blue tit; 3 long-tailed tit; 3 blackbird; 2 dunnock; 2 great tit; 2 coal tit; 2 goldfinch; 2 robin; 1 nuthatch; 1 jay; 1 magpie; 1 reed bunting and 1 song thrush.

Jay by Issy Fry

By comparison, last year we recorded 91 birds and 18 different species. Our missing species this year were siskin, brambling, woodpigeon, jackdaw and great spotted woodpecker (last year we did not record song thrush). The most abundant species last year was also chaffinch, however we recorded 38 at one time compared to this years 8.

This was also the first year our number of different species had decreased, with 15 different species recorded in 2017, 16 in 2018 and then 18 in 2019.

Comparing the results to the past three years is interesting – this winter has definitely been milder resulting in fewer birds coming down to the feeders and fewer finches in general. The absence of brambling this winter, the odd sighting of a lesser redpoll and fewer siskin on the feeders has certainly been noticeable. As a result we have not been ground feeding like previous years as there haven’t been the bird numbers and the feeders have so far provided enough food.

There is still time for a cold snap, but perhaps we will have to wait until next winter for our usual winter visitors.

Our Young Naturalists group is kindly supported by the Cameron Bespolka Trust.

 

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Who would live in a house like this…

On Thursday I joined volunteers Brenda, Jacki and Sarah to put up the twelve nest boxes made by our Young Naturalists last October.

Brenda had made a few changes to the boxes for us: attaching a metal plate to the entrance hole which will prevent larger birds and other predators from enlarging the hole to gain access; adding a couple of drainage holes to the bases of each box; drilling fixing holes to allow wire to be passed through so the top of the box can be secured firmly to a tree; and finally extra hooks to ensure the box lids closed firmly.

Nest boxes built by our Young Naturalists group in October

The boxes were used to replace some of the older ones on the reserve that had seen better days, rather than increasing the number on site as checking them all takes time! Once they were positioned on to a tree, Jacki recorded the direction the box was facing, the height of the box, its GPS, the species of tree it was attached to and the number of the box.

Most of the boxes were attached quite low to trees – bird boxes do not need to be high and fixing them low means they can be easily checked by volunteers without the need for a ladder, speeding up the process. We did however attach one box higher than the others, in the hope of enticing a pair of nuthatch to make it their home, so low boxes don’t suit all species.

Brenda and Jacki are going to keep us updated with our Young Naturalist nest boxes, fingers crossed they will be put to good use and we can follow what happens, who moves in and how many chicks fledge successfully. All of the data they collect is passed on to the British Trust for Ornithology and helps to build a better picture of the breeding success of our birds across Britain.

We look forward to our updates and hopefully later on in the Spring when there is less chance of us disturbing any activity we will be able to assist Brenda and Jacki with some of the monitoring.

Blue tit checking out one of the nest boxes on site