Best place to position a bird box?

r00fie1 said:
Hi Rob.
If it werent for accidentally shooting the neighbours or poisoning innocent cats and pets, I would happily blast the squirrels with a GPMG and a packet of hard-tac to give the little wotsits constipation!
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Squirrels are like rats with bushy tails, neither of them conducive to operating a bird feeder.
 
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As a general rule of thumb, you should aways attach a bird box so it is facing away from the object you are fixing it to, thank me later 👍
 
guisborough_rob said:
If you have squirrels, once they find the box they will go back and predate eggs or young birds. I speak from experience as that’s happened with all four of my boxes this year. Next year, I’m going to cut some metal to put round the holes so the squirrels can’t gnaw their way into the box. (Though hopefully the pine martens will get the squirrels first!!)
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I would have thought a squirrel would be too big to get inside a bird box sized hole - i know they definitely take eggs an small chicks from open nests but I’ve heard of them getting into nest boxes before. Not saying it can’t happen mind, they’re clever little beggars
 
Funky_Chicken said:
I would have thought a squirrel would be too big to get inside a bird box sized hole - i know they definitely take eggs an small chicks from open nests but I’ve heard of them getting into nest boxes before. Not saying it can’t happen mind, they’re clever little beggars
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They chew round the hole to make it big enough to get in. As you say Funky, clever little beggars.
 
r00fie1 said:
Roofie made a bird box out of old bits of wood this morning.

There`s a big tree in the garden and I wonder if its worth placing it on there, or whether to put it on the side wall - but concerned there might be bird poo all over the path.

Any suggestions?

* ps: There are lots of Robbins, t*ts, Magpies and Sparrows around.
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A tree.

A big one.

Away from cats.

Hope this has helped. 😎😉👍🏻
 
Randy said:
Away from cats.
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When the young t*ts fledge, that is the worst time. We have cats, our neighbours have bird boxes. I've spend hours of my life trying to ensure the fledglings are safe. We keep the cats in when we see they are starting to jump out of the box.
 
sadgit said:
When the young t*ts fledge, that is the worst time. We have cats, our neighbours have bird boxes. I've spend hours of my life trying to ensure the fledglings are safe. We keep the cats in when we see they are starting to jump out of the box.
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Impossible for our family. My cat would eat through the back door if we left him a scratching at it long enough 😀. He's definitely the Ray Mears of the cat world. Unfortunately he does occasionally bring 'presents' back but these are mostly mice. Just circle of life I guess.
 
Got dozens of them of all shapes and sizes and even a nice big owl box in the wood.... but the owls are ignoring it. Get quite a few visits though, no mistaking owl shyte.
I generally put the boxes with the back to the previaling wind and weather but if it's sheltered it doesn't seem to make any difference.
I made another 10 of them 2 years ago and painted them all different colours. Starlings went for black, blue t*ts lilac and sparrows bark blue. The rest of them still unpopulated.
Have a few bat boxes out and we get a visit from them doing their aerial acrobatics at dusk in the garden. Lovely.
Sadly have quite a few magpies who wreak havoc.... awful noisy buggers.
 
zzzzz said:
Have a few bat boxes out and we get a visit from them doing their aerial acrobatics at dusk in the garden. Lovely.
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We have bats in the garden, see them over the pond most night but only 1 or 2... I have been thinking about making a bat box.
 
Kids made a bird box at school.
Put it up in the garden, facing north, 2m up.

All I managed to attract was bees who made the biggest hive I'd ever seen in it.
That was great fun trying to get rid of that
 
sadgit said:
we get foxes/owls/etc in the garden, but would love to have pine martins. Really envious :)
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You might be surprised at what comes into your garden, depending on where you live of course. These wildlife cameras are worth a try. They're cheap as chips now (the photo above was taken with one) and although the image quality is poor at the lower level and the subject needs to be still, it's enough to identify it. The pine marten is an almost nightly visitor along with badgers , deer and foxes plus the odd wild boar - I even caught the neighbour. :)
 
pierrequiroule said:
You might be surprised at what comes into your garden, depending on where you live of course. These wildlife cameras are worth a try. They're cheap as chips now (the photo above was taken with one) and although the image quality is poor at the lower level and the subject needs to be still, it's enough to identify it. The pine marten is an almost nightly visitor along with badgers , deer and foxes plus the odd wild boar - I even caught the neighbour. :)
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Agree with that. Fascianting. I have a couple of cheap motion sensor night cameras and love seeing the different night visitors.
 
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