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Bird Boxes

Choosing your bird box

Ensure that your bird box has holes in the base, as good drainage is important.
Check that your bird box provides good insulation, but that it also provides sufficient ventilation for the birds inside.
Make sure that your bird box can be opened and closed easily to allow for good cleaning.
Check that the entrance hole is large enough for the type of birds you are trying to attract. For example, blue tits and coal tits will use boxes with holes of 25mm diameters, but great tits and tree sparrows require holes with diameters of 28mm or more. Meanwhile, house sparrows cannot fit through holes with diameters smaller than 32mm.

Positioning your bird box

When choosing a location for your Wildlife World bird box, ensure that the entrance will be out of the prevailing wind and that the hole will be protected from rain. (It is helpful to angle the front of the box downwards slightly.) Also, ensure that the box will be kept out of direct sunlight.
Place the bird box away from your bird feeder to prevent nesting birds from being disturbed.
Position your bird box in a quiet spot, ensuring that the box is out of reach of predators, such as cats. This usually means that the box should be positioned between 4 and 6ft above the ground.
Place a metal guard plate around the entrance of the box to make it more difficult for squirrels and woodpeckers to enter.
Place open-fronted robin boxes into thick cover, such as climbing ivy or a thick shrub.

Cleaning out your bird box

Legally, you can clean out your bird box anytime between 1^st August and 31^st January. (Birds search for a nest in which to rear their young from January onwards.) However, be careful when deciding to clean out your box, as there is always a possibility that birds could be nesting inside.
Before looking inside your bird box, always tap the side of the box lightly to alert adult birds to your presence, and to give them a chance to fly away.
Lift the lid of the bird box very slowly. If you see an adult bird sitting on the eggs, look to see how many eggs / young there are, before carefully lowering the lid and leaving quickly and quietly.
If there are no eggs or birds inside the box, remove old nests to reduce the number of parasites, such as fleas, that will be present in the following season.