Battersea Power Station - old nest box

 

Old Nest Box

With the early acceptance by the pair of the newly designed nest box into the structure of the Power Station, namely on the northeast wash tower, the old nest box tower top section that had served remarkably well over the years, was removed on September 2nd.

This was part of the mitigation strategy, it was placed in February 2013 and has been an incredible success, over 9 breeding seasons, they fledged 20 juveniles from the Tower, averaging just over 2 per season.

I can remember making the box, it was made from 12mm ply and over the years it was cleaned out, once a year it was weatherproofed, considering it was plywood it lasted well.

When it was lifted down, on inspection, I was quite surprised just how good the condition of the box was, considering its very exposed position aloft 50 metres up for 9 years. I had expected all the edges to be flayed and blown which is the norm with ply.

I have had other boxes rot after just 3 or 4 years, I have always used ply from the same source, so suspect that it may be down to ply quality.

Plastic boxes are obviously the way to go as it’s never going to rot, but as it stands, making one out of ply is a cheaper option.

Some photos attached from the day.

Also a few photos from a recent visit, it shows the Falcon coming in with prey and then getting mobbed by 8 Carrion Crows. Being the smart birds that they are, they pick there mobbing times, often with peregrines, it coincides with when they have prey, they know there is no risk. A secondary motive on the Crows part, is that they could get her to drop the prey and potentially get a free meal.

Without prey, its often a different ball game and the peregrines natural aggression and attitude asserts itself.

On this occasion this was the case, she quickly cached the prey and set about the Crows, a bit distant but spectacular stuff, as she went after a couple of Crows who were a bit slow in retreating.