It’s the time of year when the seven nest boxes in the garden are cleaned in preparation for any winter roosting, and ahead of the breeding season next year.
This exercise also gives an opportunity to see exactly what has been constructed, in which nest boxes (only two have cameras) and what evidence can be found to suggest which birds occupied them.
As per usual the original nest box was occupied by blue tits (because they were seen fledging), and no leftover eggs or chicks were found, meaning all eggs successfully hatched and all chicks fledged.
In the other three single nest boxes, there hadn’t been any nesting carried out. Two are open fronted and are located in now dense honeysuckle and ivy.
The other has a camera and this has seemingly put any birds off nesting in there this year – however it’s the first year it was up so fingers crossed for 2018.
In the triple next box, all sections had nests. One was definitely used by house sparrows, however the other two had similar nests, but one more clue was a bit puzzling.
Two of the nests each had one egg, which appear to be blue tit eggs, as you can see below.
This leads to three potential theories.
1 – The house sparrows only occupied one box and blue tits nested in the other two – presumably after the house sparrows
2 – Blue tits nested on one box, laid an egg were put off by the house sparrows so moved next door, laid an egg, but moved out because of the house sparrows
3 – The blue tits nested after the house sparrows left, and either successfully fledged (with one egg being dud in each box) or parent(s) were killed by local cats/birds of prey
However, we’ll never know and can only hope that we’ll get to see some of this year’s fledglings back in the garden next year.
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