Birdboxes 2023

Helping Wildlife This Winter

As part of our efforts to help the wildlife of Yaxley the Countryside Volunteers have a programme of building, installing and monitoring habitat boxes around the village. As habitats disappear due to development it is becoming harder for wildlife to find places to hibernate through winter and then find nesting sites in spring.

Earlier this year we worked with Yaxley Hobby Hub to use their excellent workshop facilities and created bird and bat boxes and bug hotels using recycled materials. These have been installed in local sites such as Pound Lane and also in member’s gardens. We regularly check the boxes to see if they have been used and also to replace any damaged boxes. Woodpeckers and squirrels are predators of nesting birds and so some of our boxes are designed and built with metal reinforcements to resist this.

Different birds need different designs of box and one size doesn’t suit all. As a general rule – the bigger the bird, the bigger the hole and it is a good idea to not have more than one box of each type. This is because there will be too much competition for food for the young birds.

The boxes not only provide nesting places for birds but also provide overwintering sites for butterflies, moths and beetles. Having nest boxes in your garden or on your house not only helps the birds to breed but also helps your flowers and vegetables too with resident pest controllers. Small birds eat thousands of aphids, caterpillars and bugs during the nesting season as even seed eating birds such as sparrows hunt for insects to feed their young.

Log piles, upturned plant pots and heaps of leaf litter in the corners of your garden or under a bush will also help. Not all garden birds nest in holes and having shrubs, trees and other cover will help the blackbirds and robins. Log piles and leaves also provide hibernation sites for animals such as hedgehogs and frogs.

YCV have installed well over sixty boxes around the village and our surveys show that they are helping local wildlife to survive. We do make boxes for sale as part of our fund raising so if you would like to buy a box and get advice about the best place to put it please do get in contact:

secretary@ycv.co.uk