How Essential?
Our house has a south facing roof and for several years, sparrows have nested under the tiles. Each year they take in grass and other nest building materials which I would like them to stop. To this end I have made a multi-compartment nest box which I am / was going to put up under the eaves, adjacent to where they nest. The advice seems to be don't put boxes on a south facing wall, presumably because of the heat but the sparrows themselves build on this south side of the house so the heat can't bother them that much as they have several broods each year.
So the question is, should I be OK with my proposed position. The box will be slightly shaded from direct sun, being under the eaves and the timber used is 20mm thick, so quite a good insulator. I could mount it on the east side of the house but the sparrows never seem to go down that side of the house. Just as a point of interest, my neighbour put a robin box on the south side of his house and blackbirds used it twice last year. Any comments anyone?
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It’s better to stop them completely rather than create something alien to them JM20. Evolution has given them the tools to allow both them & Their progeny a good chance of survival, your good hearted attempts won’t help them in the short nor long term. If you block them before they start they will migrate to a similar place without issue to yourself. I suffered similar issues & attached narrow gauge wire to stop them. My Dogs & neighbours cats looked on newly fledged chicks as toys, I found that natural yes but I was part of the problem I didn’t like so I took steps to end it.
PS-their must be a dearth of nesting sites if Blackbirds nest away from Tree cover, I have never in my lifetime found a Blackbird nest away from trees or bushes thanks for the info👍🏻
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Sometimes when a roof needs retiling the situation changes, our neighbours had jackdaws under their tiles (a very old building) but recent roof repairs have made the jackdaws look elsewhere. I don't know how the neighbours put up with the noise Jackdaws make but they did. There is usually alternative accommodation around. Quite a few of us locally have bats in our roofs and the bats are protected. If you can put up with the Sparrows all well and good plus a nest box or two to encourage new homes, it's all a compromise. If you've got good habitat around hopefully your visitors, if they can't use your roof will find new places to nest. But try not to disturb active nests, wait till the fledglings have gone.
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If the sparrows are going under the tiles, it will be cooler under there, and I doubt that even with the best of intentions, you could replicate a cool enough box for them slightly lower down. Can I ask what your garden is like, because we have hundreds of resident sparrows, and they simply love the hedges, shrubs and trees we have? We also have non invasive shrubs such as Pyracantha, dense Clematis going up the house, and again we get nesting birds in this rather than invading the roof eaves. (Used by Blackbirds, Robins and Wrens as well.)
If the eaves overhang enough, you could try a Sparrow terrace under there?
We are very fortunate, as all the gardens around us have mixed hedging, lots of trees and shrubs, so we do get lots of sparrows and dunnocks, as well as other residents and visitors. Garden fencing, just bare is easy maintenance, but is possibly one of the worst culprits for losing bird life. Putting climbers up it, and planting some nice shrubs helps, but they do love a decent mixed hedge as it gives them all they need to thrive. We don’t cut our hedges either between April and September, I just hand prune a bit carefully during this period. Titchmarsh and Dimmock have a lot to answer for with their ruddy Ground Force programme of years ago. All that fencing and decking, brilliant for rats, but terrible for birds, hedgehogs etc….☹️
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Not in East Yorks they ain’t. I counted eleven(11) HS’s on the sunflower hearts & the mixed seed feeders. Collared Doves 4, why I mention them is because I’ve only seen 1 in nearly 2 years. Goldfinches 10, the most I’ve ever seen. A few greenfinches & chaffinches too. The HS’s bully the finches heavily.
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Thanks for all your replies. We feed the birds (costs us a fortune) but we love to see them in the garden. Before the breeding season starts we have in excess of 30 sparrows that live mainly in the tall, dense, hawthorne hedge at the bottom of the garden(as well as blackbirds, dunnocks, blue tits, wrens and robins). We also have resident hedgehogs. In July / August this number increases to a very estimated 100+. In truth it is only two pairs that have nested under the tiles the rest must nest in the hedge although I have never seen evidence of any nests. For an urban garden we don't do badly for birdlife.
I think I'll put up the box under the overhang of the eaves and see what happens. Birds aren't daft, if it is not right for them they won't use it.
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I have firethorn espalier trained along fencing TDA. In winter during pruning there are a multitude of nests👍🏻. Vicious thorns, I use my woodburner mitts when I prune-that bad🤷🏻♂️
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I doubt you will have a problem with them finding other places to nest/roost John, but good on you for providing an alternative. Best of luck with it😁
Yes Rocky, some of the stuff I prune needs Kevlar gloves😱 I spend time de thorning my hands at times, but great for security. I have a couple of roses that are better than barb wire.
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Collared doves and Wood Pigeons abound here. I am not fond of either, but they are tolerated. We do well for Goldfinches, LT Tits, and the occasional Gold Crest as well. Arboreal Warfare between Squirrels, Magpies and Jackdaws😂 Love them all though.
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Are you enjoying your stove?. I struggle with not lighting it as soon as I get up unless we are out then I just set it for our return👍🏻. I will miss winter when it’s finally done, a stove so makes winter bearable.
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Interested to know what is the reason for wanting to stop the under eave nesting, is it hazardous in any way, John? We tried to encourage swifts to do similar but failed in our attempts, even the sparrow didn’t take up residency, don’t know why.
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We love it, but then I was brought up in a home with open fires, and we only did a year in this house without an open fire. 38 years this month in this, our only house. We had a big Spanish basket in our big open hearth for 27 years, we could burn some big logs on there, but we always let it go out overnight for safety, and used a fire Screen as well. When OH retired, we forked out for a big stove, had chimney lined and got into the wood burn groove properly. We are fortunate to have some big trees in our garden and neighbour gardens, so are seldom short of wood to burn, got a great collect, cut, store/dry system in place. We have taken to picking up a couple of supermarket bag for life stick collections most dog walks in our local woods, as there is just so much wood lying around, and it’s ready to burn after a week or so drying in greenhouse. Big logs are thrown into Jeep as well🤣 We actually enjoy cutting and storing it, the exercise and effort does us good. I love thwacking at stuff with a big axe, but haven’t used chain saw yet. We burn smokeless as well just to get a good ash bed, but it doesn’t cost much and warms most of house. I know what you mean about lighting it in day, soon gets things warm. I only put heating on for an hour before heading up to bed, and it’s on for an hour in morning as well at the moment. Wouldn’t be without it, so cosy😁
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I changed out my old stove that could take 18” logs for a DEFRA approved smaller one with the recyc technology to cut the particulates down to a minimum. It needs a kind of MOT every year by a HETAS engineer. It has a big old sheet of glass that looks very nice showcasing dancing flames. It also has a choice of burning speeds, it’s canny for sure as I’ve got a little over 50% wood still in the stores🤷🏻♂️. It has helped with the energy costs too, we got £200 back from the energy company which threw me until I did my research😂.
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We're not lucky enough to have Swifts and Swallows either but neighbours have them. Some of the new houses in our village were built with overhangs on their roofs and the Swallows have returned year after year when previously they used the modern barns which were demolished for the new housing. Forward thinking at it's best.
Good to hear so many have plenty of birds.
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Not exactly hazardous Micky but it is surprising how much potential nesting material that they have flown up with that gets left in the gutter with the potential of blocking the drainage. I'm getting too old to be shimmying up and down ladders on a regular basis to check / clear the gutter. They nest not actually under the eaves but under the roof tiles. This has encouraged flies to enter the loft space especially if one of the chicks doesn't make it for some reason. Last year we had quite a swarm of flies in the loft. Was this the heat that killed one or more of the young birds? I'll never know as I can't get to the area where their nest is due to the roof being very a very shallow pitch compared to most roofs.
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jM20, I’ve had it put to me it is hazardous(the years of nesting material build up). I admit it isn’t my thinking but it was put to me by a building inspector(insurance) that to allow birds unfettered access to homes under roofs is classed as a fire hazard. I can understand from an insurance perspective for sure. When I put my Mesh up after cleaning away decades of nests that amounted to 4 reusable supermarket bags rammed with nesting material I accepted what the insurance guy said as he has the experience but I’ve never heard of nest fires happening🤷🏻♂️
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I suspected that we had mice in the loft last year. We had heard scratching. I put my trail cam up there and sure enough it was mice. They just paraded in front of the camera. What I want to know is what were they eating whilst up there?
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Peanuts?🤣
Hope things go well. We love all our feathered friends, residents and visitors, but you do have to keep on top of things to keep house self and critters healthy. I have given up on Tulip bulbs, it’s more like opening a McDonalds for squirrels, little blighters just dig them up and off to nest🤨
Our most interesting invasion was a couple of years ago, we had some sort of bees that had nested inside our brickwork. (We don’t have cavity walls, house is too old). There was obviously some sort of space they found very appealing. Once we identified them as bees, rather than wasps (😱), we decided just to let nature take its course, until they left, and dealt with after that. Nuisance though having to have bedroom window panelled over to keep them from getting in, and we did have to chase a few back outside. Thankfully they haven’t come back.
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