We spend a fortune on bird seed and are richly rewarded with a garden full of birds.
As I write there is a very persistent and slightly monotonous Great Tit chirruping away. I hope he and his mate find the nest box we put in the hawthorn trees.
The native hedge we planted is still only a couple of feet high and it will be a few more years before it’s dense enough for birds to safely nest there. In the meantime we have given them a helping hand.
Robins have nested in their box along the side of the garage for two years now and the tits have been using their boxes too. Last year I was working in the garden when the blue tits fledged. I quietly sat on the path of the Hazel Walk and waited as they popped out. Fortunately Hemingway’s birdcatching days are over.
Earlier this year I was at a loss what to buy MLH for his birthday. I found the nest box section on the RSPB website and decided to go out on a limb and buy a swift box and two house martin nests. There is quite a colony of house martins in the next village along our main road and I saw a pair of swifts in our village – always over the same section of cottage roofs so I am hopeful a perspicacious bird will spot the Des Res opportunities on offer.
Needless to say, swift and house martin boxes need to be high up under the eves. This was when I began to regret my impulse. MLH scampered up the ladder which I was holding on to for grim death on our sloping driveway. Fortunately we didn’t become another DIY Disaster statistic and the boxes are firmly attached.
If you build it they will come. Fingers crossed.
