The Week

More boxes



Quite a full week for myself and Paul, plenty to do with a good number of nest boxes placed, mainly of the smaller type but also including a Little Owl Box.

First up was 6 small boxes – 4-hole boxes and 2 open fronted boxes, the hole boxes easy enough to place on trees anywhere as they are more or less predator proof.

The open fronted boxes are a different matter, they needed to be tucked away from the attentions of Magpies and Crows, so these 2 were consequently placed well into cover.

I see this quite a lot in London, open fronted nest boxes placed on the side of buildings/trees, wide open to predators with no thought but to tick the boxes, sadly they have very little chance of acceptance and take up.

After these were fitted, we moved on to 2 Black Redstart boxes, the Woodcrete Brick boxes chosen were of a type that are predator proof with a small entrance slot. Specifically chosen, we placed these in areas where there had been Black Redstart activity in the Spring/Summer.

These as I see it, are the next best thing to a Schwegler Brick Box (£75.98) but quite a bit cheaper at £34.00.

                                                            Woodcrete to last longer

                                                       Battersea 2014 - Black Redstart nest site

A notoriously hard species to get into a nest box, hopefully these will do the trick, if BR’s are not keen on them, Pied/Grey Wagtail and Robin may well use them hopefully.

Last up was a Little Owl Box, a little bit of history behind this, as it’s a replacement nest box of one already in situ. Used successfully in 2023, Grey Squirrels nailed it this year early on, I turfed them out 3 times, they gave up, only for Honeybees to move in!
Naturally left the Bees to presumably hibernate in the old box, hence the new one!

                                                                      Little Owl Box

Fingers crossed on them all.