Tuesday, August 08, 2006
One for the birds
BIRDS can bring great beauty and interest to the garden as well as reducing the pest population, but city living can leave many breeding pairs short of a home. Do your bit for birds this spring and buy a nest box to suit the species that visits your bird table. Most boxes are designed to provide the right sort of des res for individual species. You can choose either a natural material that will blend with the environment and encourage the birds to move in, or something a bit more colourful to suit your garden's style.
Britain's official nest box, pounds 16.95
This ingenious box (left) is created from woodcrete, a material that ensures the best thermal properties for rearing chicks or winter roosting. There's a choice of four colours and three hole sizes for different birds.
Give your birds a stylish home that can be hung where cats find it hard to reach. These solid wooden homes from Digit (www.digit.co.uk) are painted in bright blue with a hardwood iroko roof. The range also includes a delightful painted bird house in pine with a pitched galvanised roof, suitable for robins and sparrows. Call 0870 120 1630 for a free catalogue.
Oak interchangeable box, pounds 15.99
For a material that is environmentally sound and resists attack from squirrels and magpies, consider this oak box (right) from Wildlife World (08707 572 233). It's designed to be suitable for different types of birds.
With its panel fitted, blue tits, great tits, marsh tits and coal tits can make it their home, or, when it is removed, robins, wagtails and wrens can move in. Once the box is in position it should not need maintenance and will weather with the elements. A lovely choice for gardens on the edge of the greenbelt.
Open nest box, pounds 9.95
If robins are your favourite feathered friends why not offer them an open-fronted box that lets the light in.
This design is particularly attractive to robins and you will be thrilled when the fledglings learn to fly.
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