Both nest boxes have Blue Tits and the Sparrow Tenement Block has been occupied.
A pair of Long-tailed Tits are nesting two gardens down and have been seen collecting nesting material in my garden recently for the first time ever.
Great Tits and a pair of Coal Tits have been seen in courtship mode but I've not located the nesting sites.....
The pics are not too good as I have to be quite a distance away for the Sparrows to stay in view and it stretches my little Panasonic DMC TZ8 zoom to its limits.
Mr and Mrs Sparrow (Jack and Jill) surveying the scene before gittin jiggy wid it....They will probably have 3 broods and help maintain the falling Sparrow population.
Sparrow site overview.........
BlueTit at house nest box...this is located just outside of the patio door and is the first time it's been used in the 5 years it's been there
Site overviewNest box built inside of the garden shed with an entrance hole drilled through. 2 or 3 Blue Tits have raised young over the last 8 or so years of its existence along with a Great Tit brood.
Site overview...notice the 15watt blacklight/blue used to attract moths to the shed wall....this is decommissioned if and when nesting occurs, like now.
Hmm - I like the 'inside the shed box' idea.
ReplyDeleteI used to have a nest box on a wall above a window that Blue Tits used, but moved it when the window became a patio door thinking it would deter the tits. They never used the re-sited box :-(
Which way out does the Sparrow des-res face (N, E, S, W)? And is that a five-box arrangement?
The Sparrow box faces ENE exactly and it was supposed to be a 5 compartment box.
DeleteBut for some reason, the dividing wall of the two right-hand compartments was missed out ????
THIS is the compartment most favoured by the Sparrows and measures 300mm x 150mm x 150mm instead of the intended 150mm x 150 x 150.
So it also has TWO entrance holes !
During nesting both entrance holes are used.
I may consider removing the dividing wall between the two left-hand compartments after this breeding season.
The middle compartment has never been used, so the optimum design would seem to be a double nest box, 600m long x 150 x 150 with one dividing wall and with 2 entrance holes each.
It was 5 years in place before it was occupied tho.