What a difference a day makes: yesterday
Our garden yesterday
morning we woke to find another three inches of snow – on top of the previous snow fall of three inches. This morning, we woke to find that it had nearly all gone!
In fact today was a beautiful day – with some lovely sunshine and very mild compared to recent days.
In the afternoon, six of us (Steve Joul, your correspondent, Jen, Brian, Andrew and Chris) continued our nest box survey.
We needed six of us because of the amount of equipment and luggage we had with us – including eight new Woodstone Nest Boxes, purchased with the aid of a council grant.
Between 2.15 and 5.00 pm we managed to survey 7 boxes – not a bad achievement bearing in mind that we were working in probably the roughest and muddiest part of the Meanwood Valley trail: some of the mud was about a foot deep!
A tit nest – with luminous green material!
All but one of the nest boxes we surveyed had been used for nesting – and the one that had not been used had been used for roosting. Four of the boxes had been used by tits, and two by nuthatches. This means that of the boxes we have surveyed so far, three were used by nuthatches last year – and they were until recently considered a rarity in the north of England.
Some of the boxes were a little worse for wear after two years use and we replaced four with Woodstone boxes which are much stronger and easier to clean. We refurbished one or two with a new plastic roof and the ones we replaced we have returned to the depot for refurbishment and re-use in the fullness of time.
Only another twelve boxes to go!
Friends of Adel Woods 