national nestbox week

National Nestbox Week is designed to encourage people to provide more homes for wildlife in their gardens – why stop with the birds? I spent last Sunday making bird boxes, bat boxes and this – a home for solitary bees.

I confess to knowing very little about these bees but I do find them fascinating – I watched one coming and going from an old drill-hole in a fence post in the garden last summer and meant then to do something to increase the availability of suitable niches for them this year.

February is the ideal time to install these habitat features – it gives them time to naturalise a bit as well as ensure that they are in evidence for any bees which may be seeking a home as the temperatures rise in the spring.

You may well have seen various bee houses for sale in garden centres and similar gift shops. I have always been surprised at quite how much these cost, although drilling all of the holes made me re-consider the economy of having somebody else do it for me! Nontheless, I rescued a selection of silver birch logs from my parents’ house (they recently took down a tree and the logs seemed too beautiful to be consigned to the ashes of the logburner) and set about making a mini bee hotel.

The logs were cut into 7 inch sections and I made a simple frame from some old offcuts of wood to hold them. I would suggest, if you choose this approach, to screw the frame together very firmly. This allows you to pack the logs in tight and hammer in additional smaller pieces to fill in the gaps and keep them in place, using the tension of the solid frame to hold against.

Once I had arranged the logs in a fairly stable manner within the frame, I set to work drilling holes in the logs, being careful to remove as much of the sawdust as possible and making sure that they were pointing slightly upwards to stop the rain from getting in.

This guide provides an excellent introduction to making these habitats and, following its recommendations, I have made holes from 2mm to 8mm in order to attract a range of different types of solitary bee.

I could not find much in the way of siting recommendations for these habitats although one page on the Telegraph website suggested the sunniest spot in the garden. Our garden is quite shaded but I have selected a spot near the vegetable and herb garden, to encourage pollinators to our vegetables this year, where the sun shines throughout the morning and should provide warm conditions. It also benefits from being sheltered to prevent rain from reaching the bee hotel.

Below are some step-by-step photographs showing the creation of the feature – I will hopefully update in the summer to describe all of the bees which have come to use it!

If you wanted to encourage bees in a more casual way, the guide recommends simply drilling holes into fence posts and other logs and pieces of wood around the garden. This creates less of a feature but, in terms of encouraging biodiversity into your garden, it is ideal!

Silver birch logs which looked too beautiful to burn!

Cut the logs into 7in sections which can then be drilled longways to create the holes for use by solitary bees.

The logs stacked inside a simple wooden frame made from offcuts of wood. It took a while to arrange them all in a stable manner but a sturdy frame allows you to hammer in additional smaller pieces to pack the logs in, using the tension of the frame to hold them in place.

Then drill! This is the finished product, filled with various sized holes from 2mm up to 8mm. I would suggest drilling all holes with a small drill bit to begin with, then widen some of them to different sizes as starting work with an 8mm bit is tough going! The metal around the outside is not part of the design, rather the shelving unit behind a shed where pots are kept - it faces onto the vegetable and herb beds whilst the shef above it also provides cover from the rain. — Then drill! This is the finished product, filled with various sized holes from 2mm up to 8mm. I would suggest drilling all holes with a small drill bit to begin with, then widen some of them to different sizes as starting work with an 8mm bit is tough going! The metal around the outside is not part of the design, rather the shelving unit behind a shed where pots are kept – it faces onto the vegetable and herb beds whilst the shef above it also provides cover from the rain.

Last Sunday was such a sunny, beautiful day that it called for outdoor projects to keep me busy in the fresh air. The first thing I noticed when I stepped outside was the sheer volume of bird song, with blue tits, robins, dunnocks and wrens all busy singing and chasing one another in pairs around the garden. I even spotted a long-tailed tit clinging to the side of the house, plucking spiders webs from between the brickwork to build a nest. It seemed a little too early to do much in the way of gardening, but the birds were making it clear that they were making ready to nest. What better project than to build a couple of bird boxes! It is not pure coincidence that this week is National Nestbox Week.

I have to say my choice of design was limited by the tools available – I don’t have a drill bit which can make the large round holes preferred by some species such as blue tits, but fortunately the designs for wrens and robins are open fronted which means that with little more than a plank of wood, a saw and a drill (and an old inner tube for the hinge), you can make a nest box.

I actually used plans I found on the Which? website, adapted a little to suit the wood I had available. I’ve sited the wren box within an area of dense shrubs in the garden – this is the habitat favoured by the species and provides them some cover and protection from predators. I attached the box securely (imagine how bad you would feel if the box blew down when the birds had begun nesting!) using a bungee cord as this will not cause any damage to the tree as it continues to grow. The cord may need to be replaced after a few years but should certainly ensure the box is securely attached until it wears down.

The box has been up for two days and already there has been a great tit investigating. I am hoping that it won’t be long before something takes up residence – watch this space! Just for the avoidance of doubt – it’s the camera which is wonky in the video below rather than the nest box!

Below are some step-by-step photographs which show the progression of the box from planks of wood through to completion.

Why not have a go at making a nest box yourself and see what birds you can attract to breed in your garden as part of National Nestbox Week? Construction is not one of my strengths but you will be amazed at how simple and satisfying it is to make a box of your own. All of the instructions to get involved in National Nestbox Week can be found here, along with some great resources on how to build/buy and site your box. Lincolnshire Wildife Trust also have some fantastic resources for building all kinds of bird boxes including those designed for more unusual species such as kestrel. You can register your box with the National Nest Box scheme and then provide updates on the species which use the box and how they fare – all of this information provides valuable data for monitoring and research into garden birds.