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Vandal in the Garden (1 Viewer)

sol1962

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We have recently moved House which has a large back garden. We have put bird boxes up on various trees in the garden for next spring.
The problem I have is that a great spotted woodpecker has decided that it’s a great idea to drill the holes larger in two of the boxes and damage two others.
Any ideas how I can stop this, other than making them out of concrete.
 
In my experience the woodpecker soon will open a wooden box from the side, when the birds have young.
A plate does not fully stop woodpecker predation.
 
In my experience the woodpecker soon will open a wooden box from the side, when the birds have young.
A plate does not fully stop woodpecker predation.

Like most animals, there has to be a positive, value attached to the effort spent in getting a meal. Woodpeckers will widen a hole or just reach in if it's big enough but I've never heard of them goung right through a side which has no opening at all?

A good, 4 ply box, would probably make the effort too great for a pecker to bother even trying to drill right through it? It wouldn't cost the earth to cover the whole box in Aluminium if you had a very determined bird though.

We lost a Great Tit nest to a Great Spot last summer.


A
 
In my experience the woodpecker soon will open a wooden box from the side, when the birds have young.
A plate does not fully stop woodpecker predation.

perhaps a fine wire mesh, modelling mesh on ebay or wickes for example, would stop it, cheap and easy to staple or screw through and if you look around rolls are even cheaper and i think even a 25mm mesh from screwfix should put anything off drilling through.
 
Like most animals, there has to be a positive, value attached to the effort spent in getting a meal. Woodpeckers will widen a hole or just reach in if it's big enough but I've never heard of them goung right through a side which has no opening at all?

A good, 4 ply box, would probably make the effort too great for a pecker to bother even trying to drill right through it? It wouldn't cost the earth to cover the whole box in Aluminium if you had a very determined bird though.

We lost a Great Tit nest to a Great Spot last summer.


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Some of them are very determined (see my photo), but I think that is just natural behaviour + individual learning.
Others don´t seem to be so interested in this type of prey.
 

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Some of them are very determined (see my photo), but I think that is just natural behaviour + individual learning.
Others don´t seem to be so interested in this type of prey.

This looks like an old box that probably had a crack in it which the Pecker was able to exploit?


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This looks like an old box that probably had a crack in it which the Pecker was able to exploit?


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well, also the damage by the woodpecker isn´t fresh any more, but at least from previous year, so this is difficult to say here.

But at least in some cases i have seen they use the edge, where there is a thin gap separating two wooden parts.
So you could well be right there, and they start at the area of a box they perceive as weakest...
which wouldn´t need to be the same that we think the weakest.



another question : I have seen squirrels eat eggs and young birds, but would they also gnaw throgh a nest box?

there are several photos in the web which say this is squirrel damage:

http://c8.alamy.com/comp/BA4XC2/nest-box-with-squirrel-damage-BA4XC2.jpg

http://www.obsessedbynature.com/blo.../DSCN2972-nestbox-hole-gnawed-by-squirrel.jpg

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-nest-box-damaged-by-grey-squirrel-uk-60475091.html

in some photos , like the second example, some tooth marks are visible, but I wonder if it is always so easy?
 
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