As in previous years, I have carried out inspections of our nest boxes at roughly weekly intervals between mid-April and mid-June, with help on the different occasions from Simon (twice), Janet (twice), Bob, Zdena, Tim, Sarah and Mike. This was carried out in accordance with the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) code of practice and results have been entered into the BTO Nest Record Scheme (NRS) database.
It was a mixed year, and in some ways a strange year. The majority of boxes were used, but many failed at the nest building stage, at the egg stage, or at the young stage. We believe young fledged from 9 of the boxes, but with an average of only 3.3 young per box. This is better than some years, but significantly worse than 2022 and 2023, which were exceptional. This is unsurprising, because after two very good years there was probably an excess of breeding adults in the area, all competing for the same food to feed their young. Moreover, we had several spells of particularly wet and/or cold weather in May and early June.
It was interesting that there were very few Great Tit nests (despite the majority of boxes having a sufficiently big hole), and only one of these attempts succeeded. The remaining nests were all Blue Tit.
It was also worth noting that nesting seemed to take place earlier at the northern end of the wood. Several boxes in the north already had eggs on the first visit (16th April), yet several of the nests in the southern half didn’t finish until the middle of June. Also boxes in the north were more successful, fledging more young. The reason for this is unknown, although the same was perhaps true to a lesser extent in 2022 and 2023 (since we first installed boxes in the north).
Detailed statistics are as follows:
· 31 inspectable nest boxes (some very old boxes in parts of the site do not have liftable lids);
· 26 boxes were used to some extent;
· 9 boxes fledged young, averaging 3.3 per box (1 Great Tit nest, 8 Blue Tit nests);
· 22 boxes failed for various reasons, including abandonment during nest building and dead young);
· 18 nest records added to the BTO NRS database (the remaining 8 nest attempts could not be recorded because there was never an adult present and therefore the species was not known). Note that this is the highest ever since the project started in 2013, beating the 14 nest records added in 2023.
John Elwell
