My Blue Tits Are Back!

[Peanut]

I am so very happy! I have just seen Mrs Blue Tit taking moss into her nest box.

She had used this box for several years up to 2022 when I had an unwanted greenhouse given to me, sadly she abandoned the box due to the disruption of it being assembled.
I felt terrible, really terrible.
She and Mr Blue Tit remained residents of chez peanut, they just moved into the hedges.
So when I saw her today I can't tell you how happy I was, still am!
What with my resident hedgie and now my lovely blue tits back I am one very happy Peanut.
Oh and all of them live right outside my backdoor. The blue tits are on the house wall a meter and a half from the back door and the hedgie is in the bed opposite, about 4 m away!

I both apologise and warn you in advance... I may well bore you all to death with this by the end of Summer!

[Snoop Puss]

^Fantastic, peanut. Piccies are always good for keeping the boredom at bay... (Always good to hear these kinds of things, obvs.)

[Nicos]

Hardly boring!… so lucky…do please continue to share xx

[Jungle Jane]

Congratulations peanut sounds brilliant,you have a friendly garden they all love

[Peanut]

Snoop Puss Thank you, I will definitely try to get some pics!

Nicos Thank you! Try stopping me!

Jungle Jane Thank you!
Its funny, my neighbour is lovely and we share our love of wildlife, but we are complete opposites when it comes to our gardens.
He keeps everthing regimented, lawn manicured into a green desert, flower beds and borders weed free or smothered in membrane and bark, shrubs pruned to the heights the book says they should be etc.
He despairs at my ramshackled wildlife friendly garden, full of "wild flowers" moss filled lawns with hedge and edges that resemble a long forgotten country lane.

Does a happy dance shouting "who's the one with the blue tits and hedgie!"

[Nicos]

Just goes to show eh?

[Vince G]

Was up at 6am this morning, bunged up with a cold and couldn't get back to sleep, so went down and made a coffee and watched blue tits going in and out of our box. I reckon one or other of the pair were going in the box with a beakful of nesting material once a minute. They don't half work hard!

Made a 3 hole sparrow box recently but still not put it up. The perfect place for it is on the south-east facing wall of the house, but it means carrying a ladder up a ladder to get on top of the garage to then go up the ladder I carried up to attach it to the house and Mrs G is not keen on me doing that it seems, so got to find an alternative, despite me saying they prefer to nest high up. North-east would be OK but that's on the front of the house, so that's not allowed either apparently...leave it with me.

[Nicos]

I would say that I’m sure Rary would offer to go up on top of your garage Vince…..but I wouldn’t want to give him ideas!

[Snoop Puss]

Spotted our first blue tit this morning. Unfortunately, it's bobbing around the ground in our corral. Very vulnerable to the cats. We have a perfect hole for them to nest in one of our olive trees by the house. In the past, the cats have never bothered them in there. But Missie is a keen hunter and it was one of her favourite trees for practising climbing when she was a kitten. I've let thistles grow underneath it as a cat deterrent. But all this rain and the thistles are already a metre high. Might have to chop them down a bit, mind, just so they don't grow so tall the birds can't get in and out.

[Snoop Puss]

Climbing up a ladder with a ladder, Vince G... I'm with Mrs G on this one. Is there any way you could haul the ladder up rather than having to carry it?

[Peanut]

Ideally boxes should be placed in a north or east facing position to keep them out of the heat of the sun and protected from rain, otherwise the boxes will get too much direct sun or lashed by rain. The front of your house sounds perfect for them.

[Peanut]

Managed to get some blue tit pics, they're speedy little birdies!

[Vince G]

What's the nesting material in the feeder thingy Peanut? Good idea that, I could rake a load of moss out of the shady parts of my lawn!

[Peanut]

Vince G Its wool packing! They love it. I usually use feathers from an old pillow, but I seem to have tidied it away somewhere...

[DannyK]

We have blue, great, coal and long tailed tits throughout the year.

I have had three woodcrete tit boxes for over twenty years and they have always been used.

The robin box purchased at the same time has never had signs of use!