Encouraging Birdlife into your Woodland

Hello. Today we're going to look at how we can encourage birdlife in woodland. I'd like to tell you a bit about how we monitor and encourage birdlife in Holt Cops. During the last 18 years, we've put up nearly 40 bird nest boxes designed to attract different species. Most of the boxes are made of woodcrete, a mixture of wood chips, clay and cement, so they're well insulated, strong and durable. And each year, in January or February, we check all the nest boxes, a. to see if they've been used, and b. to clean them out, because the old nest material always contains a lot of invertebrates, particularly bird fleas, and if they weren't cleaned out, it's unlikely that the birds would use the nest boxes another year. You often find mice in them, and one year there was a colony of wild honeybees. These made four gorgeous honeycombs, and the colony survived for about two or three years. We record whether the nest boxes have been used, and whether there are any unhatched eggs or dead chicks present. And in most cases, all that's left are droppings. This is probably a great tit's nest, and as you can see, there are a number of skeletons of chicks here. I think I counted eight or nine. We assume something happened to one or both of the parent birds. One year, we found tit skeletons in virtually all the nests. We'd had a very cold, wet June, and probably the chicks simply starved, because there weren't enough caterpillars about to feed them. Birds find lots of things to feed their chicks on in deciduous woods, particularly if dead trees are left standing, or fallen branches are left to rot on the ground. Moth larvae are found in huge numbers on oak trees in the spring, and they're one of the most important foods for a whole range of birds. Not just insectivorous birds like tits and nuthatches, but also for birds like finches, which as adults feed mainly on seeds. Nest boxes with a hole are preferred by blue tits, great tits, nuthatches, house and tree sparrows. Open-fronted boxes are used by species which nest in bushes, undergrowth, and include robins, blackbirds and thrushes. Different species of birds use different materials to make their nests. Blue tits sometimes make fairly elaborate nests, but other times they're much more rudimentary. These are both great tits nests. Most nests that we find are like this, and they're made of natural materials, moss and grass mainly, but occasionally we find some that are absolutely full of man-made materials. The yellow fluff here I think almost certainly came from tennis balls that dogs lost in the wood, but we've no idea where most of the other materials come from. It's not as though the wood's covered in rags and old clothes. One year we hung up strands of wool in a net, and the following winter we checked to see if these were present in any of the nests. Perhaps not surprisingly, we found most in the nests that were nearby, but there were the occasional ones in nests much further afield. This is material that we find in nuthatch nests. If the nuthatch thinks the entry hole is too big, it'll partly block it up with a mixture of mud and saliva, which sets really hard. Wrens build spherical nests. Male wrens build three or four nests, and its mate chooses which one it prefers. Tawny owls make their nests out of a mixture of twigs and leaves. By the time the chicks have fledged, the top of the nest is covered with a crust that consists mainly of droppings and probably old food. It's worth considering carefully where to put up nest boxes. Different species may have different preferences, and all will look for protection from predators and the elements. If possible, don't hang nest boxes so they face south, because they'll tend to get too hot. Exposed west-facing aspects may also get blasted by wind and rain. Always use aluminium nails when you put up nest boxes. If these nails are left in the tree that's later used for timber, saws will cut aluminium nails, but steel nails will ruin saw blades. Most of the nest boxes that we put up in Holt Copse are used most years. Provided we maintain them, I hope they'll continue to be used. Whilst the birds may nest in Holt Copse, many will forage much further afield looking for food, and some of them may well be the birds that we see on feeders in our gardens that give us so much pleasure.