Never mind Valentine’s Day, it’s nest box week! A marketing ploy to get us thinking about providing nesting sites for the birds in our gardens. Personally I think it’s a bit late for this.
I do find that nest boxes need to have been in place for a good season or more before they lose our smell and become the perfect des res for the little featured ones.
But you never know and I have no intention of putting anyone off installing a nest box or two.
Just as important is feeding the birds at this time of year. Some say that you shouldn’t feed the birds when there are fledglings around as they need to learn to forage for food, but personally I think that is bonkers.
The birds have become reliant on the supplementary food supplied by gardeners and when they are feeding little ones its even more vital that they can find quality food and quickly. If they use energy coming to your feeding station to find food then the least you can do is to feed them.
It would be pretty unfair to say, ‘now you’ve got a family, find your own’ and if the little ones are supposed to learn from this, well isn’t that making a huge assumption that they think like we do???
Weird how these things develop.
So I guess you can conclude that I will be feeding the birds in my garden anyway, especially as Westland has launched a special feed for nesting and young birds, designed to improve the chances of rearing young chicks and fledglings.
Last year I was the proud guardian of a nest of Great Tits, though they did set up home in my Sparrow Nester, so they do need a little chat about rental terms and agreements.
This year I hope some of the other nest boxes around the garden will support a few more clutches of eggs and my guilty secret?
I hope my chicken run will be finished so I can collect a few dozen eggs from my own hens again this year.
Won’t be in time for Valentine’s Day, but hey ho.
