Nesting Time

The eggs in the nest in the feature picture are little grebe ( commonly known as dab chick) eggs.

It’s that time of year when birds are busy either gathering nest materials or sitting incubating eggs on the nest. Some nests are very obvious and in plain site, others are extremely well hidden. Our local swan sits patiently on her nest and having observed her last year she’s probably going to be sitting there for many weeks yet before her cygnets are born. Swans will sit on their eggs for six weeks after they are laid.

Blue tits make good use of bird boxes, as well as lots of nooks and crannies in the countryside.

Nuthatches nest in holes in trees. Here is one preparing its nest.

Crows nest high up in trees.

Here is a pair of jackdaws preparing their nest in an old tree hollow. The jackdaws in my street try to nest under house roofs, having successfully managed it in an abandoned property. We could hear them hammering away at a rotting wood eave on our house and had to get the hole patched up before they made it any bigger.

Our blackbird nest in our hedge was attacked by a magpie last Saturday. I could hear the alarm calls of Ma and Pa Blackie, sounding like scissors opening and closing. They were flying frantically around the hedge. Then I noticed a magpie making its way along the inside of the hedge. Sadly the nest has now been abandoned, eggs or chicks eaten by the magpie. However my friend Helen sent me this picture of a blackbird nesting among the paintpots in an old shed! Hopefully it will be more out of sight of magpies there.

Keep an eye out for holes in old deadwood used by woodpeckers and any activity around them. You might get lucky as I did one year and see a young woodpecker peeking out to see if its next feed is coming! Apologies for the grainy photos – these were taken before I took a photography course.

Lastly here is a buzzard’s nest. If you look closely you can just about make out the head and yellow beak of a buzzard sitting on the nest. Watch this space in the weeks to come – hopefully I’ll have a buzzard chick to show you.