Nests

                            With the breeding season now in full swing most of my many nest boxes are occupied. There is a pair of Nuthatches in one, as shown in a recent blog, and Blue Tits and Great Tits in several others. I checked one box that had a wasps nest in it last year and was pleased to see that Great Tits had secured it for themselves and had a healthy looking clutch of eggs. As an egg collector as a child (before it became illegal) I have always had a fascination for birds eggs and know to be very careful about disturbing breeding birds but long experience has taught me that birds rarely desert a nest unless the disturbance is signifiant and repeated. In many cases when nests are raided by magpies or squirrels birds will nest again, such is the drive to reproduce.

Inside the Great Tit's nest box

Blue Tit leaving to look for food for its chicks

                        The nest box I have really been intrigued by is my Tawny Owl box. I put it up in the summer of 2018 and earlier this year I noticed some new leaves poking out. Thinking this might signal that a Grey Squirrel had taken it over,  I tapped loudly on the box one day to check it out and to my amazement an owl shot out and away. On another visit in late March,  walking nearby rather noisily the owl again shot out and away into the trees. I knew from these two experience that something was going on but decided to stay away until any eggs, should there be any, would have long hatched.

the box ready to install in July 2018

                         I then puzzled as to the best way of checking inside the box. Long ago I helped a fellow birder check out several owl boxes and the system was basically put a ladder up and look in ! Tawnies are known to be very aggressive in certain circumstances ..... in the late 1960s the wildlife photographer Eric Hoskins lost an eye to a Tawny when he got too close.  I decided to find a better, less intrusive and potentially dangerous option. To cut a long story short my solution was to design a very long selfie stick with a mobile phone on the end that I could look into the box with and film the inside.

And it worked ! And much to my delight, there were two owl chicks huddled together inside the box. Both looked healthy and I guess were about 10 days old. The adult had flown off as soon as we arrived under the box and I knew she would be watching from close by, so the whole enterprise took only a few minutes. We retreated quickly to let her come back.

Bingo, success !

my Heath Robinson nest box camera

the two Tawny Owl chicks, a bit shocked to find themselves on film

Elsewhere in the wood, the first Grass Snakes have come out of hibernation and under one of my metal tins a delightful year old was soaking up the heat. Lots of people find snakes repulsive but I am pleased to say I am not one of them. The joys of summer !