SPOTTED!
Wildlife in (and around) Hailsham
by Tim Fox
At the end of April, nesting was well and truly underway. Five starling nests, with young begging for food from within, dot the buildings on my short walk into town from near Station Road. Hopefully, there’ll be just enough rain to keep the ground soft and insects buzzing (around well-watered plants) to enable parents to forage enough food for the chicks.
We have over the years put up nest boxes for house sparrow and swift, with sparrows readily accepting our hospitality and even taking over the swift box. Blue tits twice built a nest in one of the boxes, but never laid eggs. First time around nest desertion remains a mystery but, second time around, bumblebees took over the nest box early on, so the blue tits buzzed off.
Seemingly not deterred by bees in the neighbourhood, the blue tits (a small mainly yellow and blue bird species with white face a black “beard”) sought a home elsewhere and, despite the choice of several custom-made wooden boxes, they chose somewhere “illuminating”. I’ve often read of both great and blue tits nesting in places you wouldn’t want them – for example traffic bollards for great tits and ash trays for blue tits – but our locals, for at least the second year running, have chosen to nest five metres off the ground in a hole at the top of a lamppost on a public footpath. They have been spending a few days pulling moss out of the lawn, then hopping onto a nearby tree branch, before checking the coast is clear and flying up to disappear into the nest entrance to continue forming a small cup-shaped nest into which the hen will lay up to 10 eggs. In more rural areas, great spotted woodpeckers are known to drill new or enlarge existing holes into nest boxes and cavities in order to extract the eggs (or tasty chicks!) for their own and off-springs’ consumption; there is no way a woodpecker is drilling into the metal casing of the lamp, so top marks to the blue tits for choosing a safe location, and I’m looking forwards to successful chick-fledging sometime towards the end of May, beginning of June.
Photo credits: Tim Fox
Tim can be found most Saturday mornings gracing the airwaves with Pat Bradley on 95.9 Hailsham FM, discussing local happenings between 8 and 10am.
