How lovely - I don't have bird boxes because I live on the 3rd floor with just a balcony, but I do know that bluetits nest every year in the space where the overflow pipe from my bathroom used to be. Unfortunately, the magpies know they're there too...

hi bamboo ,i had a problem with magpies ,but being an ex gamekeeper & farmer i have the perfect answer .22,lol

In my garden I have 3 bird boxes, but sorry to say they are not being used although there are a lot of birds in the garden, and all the neighbours have them as well so maybe the birds are nesting there.

We have plenty of birds nesting in and around the garden, no boxes the use the hedges.

thanks rogi ,moon growe ,moray is a wonderfull place when i was a child my uncle had a farm near forres ,i played in the woods there ,we went to burghead bay fishing & findhorn bay it was a marvelous time one day i shall go back there (50 yrs later )

We have a lot of birds in our garden, but they nest in the trees. I have noticed the Tits have gone a bit quiet, does this mean they are nesting? We went on holiday at the beginning of April and noticed it was a bit quiet when we got back. The weather has been great and there are plenty of Sparrows.

hi linda ,possibly the birds are nesting ,they are incubateing the eggs now ,you will see increased activity when the eggs hatch & the parents are feeding the chicks ,its a wonderfull feeling helping the birds

We lost all our blue and great tits after the very cold snap before Christmas. We would normally have had up to 15 at a time on our selection of feeders, but now its only robins plus usual starlings etc. We are in the country in Warks so we think they went south.Our bird box is vacant this year, first time in 12 years.

ian ,every day in the winter i fed the birds with sunflower hearts & niger seeds for the goldfinches it cost me £30 a month which i could not really afford but it was incredible i had greenfinches chaffinches bullfinches robins nuthatches every type of tits hedgesparrows you name it it was on my feeders ,i am convinced i kept dozens of birds alive throughout the winter , the trouble was ,the sparrow hawks came non stop they decimated my little birds ,one even attacked my aviary & somehow grabbed a canarys wing through the mesh & killed it , but somehow i know that hawk wont ever come back ha ha

The .22's a good answer Pete, i could use that on a couple of the nuisance cats round here !!!
(i'm a cat lover, have 2 of my own and that comment is not serious)

I have 2 bird boxes but they're not used - there's not really anywhere quiet enough.

I DO though have umpteen seed feeders in my front and back gardens and THEY get used all the time.
I live near 2 large parks and a large wood so the birds will have plenty of places to nest :-)

I have 2 boxes in use and reckon the eggs have just hatched as there is suddenly lots of "toing and froing" with mouths full by both parents.

wonderfull helen keep an eye on the cats & magpies now lol

I have bird boxes but the birds prefer the hedgerow at the bottom of the garden, its covered in ivy, I also have a number of fairly tall well established conifers which are very popular, the little wren nests in one at the back of my pond, I spend a lot of time watching her flitting about every year. We used to have an old plum tree smack in the middle of the garden, had a box in there for years that bluetits always used, when the tree became unsafe and was removed I placed the box into an apple tree but sadly the tits never used it anymore, I now have another plum tree so I might try placing a box in it and see if they use it next year...I have lots of feeding stations and tables around the garden and yes it can be quite costly but I`d feel so guilty if I failed to replenish, plus its a joy to have so many visitors especially in the winter....

I have got one box with 7 chicks at the moment.mum and dad are backwards and forwards all the time.very interesting. I love watching them.

My next door neighbours have got wrens nesting in one of their boxes! My neighbour saw a wren on the lawn 'playing football' with a lump of fluff which it managed to catch and flew into my garden with. We kept a look out, thinking they were nesting in ours but it turns out they were in a box in theirs. They (my neighbours that is) give me daily progress reports on them. It's great isn't it?

We had blackbirds last year nesting in a climbing hydrangea. It was great to see the little chicks (at a distance and careful not to touch too close to the nest) waiting for their parents coming home with the grub. We too had a sparrowhawk which caught a sparrow a couple of weeks ago, I banged on the window (I was in the kitchen at the time), thinking it would release the sparrow, but the last I saw, it flew away and the little sparrow had a look of horror on it's face - poor little thing.

I have 4 boxes, but 5 nests in bushes and one bluetit nesting in the wall cavity via a 1" gap in the mortar.

I have created a secret garden, its the typical long surburban strip, i have nest boxes for the house sparrows, and a couple of holes in the side of the brickwork for them, if they dont use them then the swifts do, i have had other nest boxes up for the blue tits but the squirrels have ruined them, but there is so many places within the secret garden, for the birds to nest, have seen dunnocks, tits, blacbirds pidgeons, robins, song thrush which sits in next doors tree at dusk whistling its many tunes, what a joy, but then we have the magpies and the cats which can be a problem, we had a blackbird [male] that had a wonky leg that was in the garden for aprox four years quite tame, dont laugh but we called him Herbert lol, have not seen him since sept 10, julien.

We have sparrows nesting in a swallows nest on the south side of the house. They went in to it last year before the swallows returned and there was a real old rumpus until the swallows gave up and went and built a nest on the northside. We had starlings in a chimney but i got the slater to put small mesh on it to stop them getting in.They are filthy birds. They have found a way in under the slates on the roof of the house next door so i am glad to see the back of them. We have at least 7 bird boxes around the garden but like every body else is finding I think the birds prefer to nest in more natural places. We had blue tits who fought off the great tits who wanted to make the entrance holes bigger. There were three nesting in the garden last year. We have a large pile of stone, a wren lives in there and another made the loveliest round ball of a nest in a fork in the yew tree. It was at eye level so we were able to keep an eye open for all their comings and goings. Three blackbirds were in nests under the honeysuckle on one wall and during the winter my husband spotted a blackbird nipping under the cotoneaster at the side of the drive. A thrush had babies in a nest in the clematis over the pergola. 2 pairs of doves were nesting in trees we had removed. One pair still nest in another tree but i have not seen the others. We had a hen pheasant made a nest, a hollow in the ground really and laid eggs but i think it was raided by the magpies. A couple of years ago the pheasants had a nest among the daffodils. That too was raided. Jackdaws have had a nest in the chimney of the house on the other side of us for as long as I can remember. At least 38 years so I wonder how many generations that will be. We get visited by owls most nights, sparrow hawks quite regularly and they usually take a pigeon, magpies not so often lately, maybe the gamekeeper has been working on them. They steal the pheasants eggs and they are needed to supply gun fodder later in the year. There are woods all around and we see woodpeckers every day. It is a very busy garden. Workmen are amazed at the number of birds we have.

We did have a Sparrow Hawk and it did frighten the birds for a while, but they came back. We have two different places where we feed and watch the birds and I have to say the Tits are the most comic.

I was very excited when two blue tits viewed one of the boxes I had put up. However they obviously decided it wasn't a des enough res and nested elsewhere. There are a couple of magpies in the garden though, so maybe they were wise to move on.

I think bird boxes are invaluable as there are simply not enough natural nesting sites or holes for bluetits these days when most people have small gardens and no big old trees. I have 4 and one is in use by bluetits this year. I think the cockbird finds a couple of nesting sites and then spends a lot of time persuading the hen to come and look at them and make her choice!
I also had a blackbird's nest in a thick laurel bush and the poor parents were frantically hunting for food so I invested in a box of dried mealworms and a pack of raisins. I just soak some mealworms in water overnight and the hen comes right up round my feet for them. Now she brings to babies with her and feeds them on the spot! It has been wonderful to watch them!

I got a tub of mealworm's(100grm's reduced from £5 to £2) and mixed them in with the seed in my feeder's and that bring's in all the little bird's, I soak mealworm's for the Magpie's and sprinkle some on my home made bird cake's.It can be expensive but I got the birds through the winter with household scraps.

thanks ,its wonderfull we have so many kind people to help feed the wildlife makeing it easier to survive the cold weather ,i still feed year round its wonderfull watching the birds

I feed all year round aswell.
Wildlife bodies that say you SHOULD be feeding them all year round, do NOT stop at this time of year.

They used to say stop, so maybe they need to put the message out more. We feed all year too. Water is even more important especially if it is freezing weather. I have seen us having to go out several times a day to break the ice on top of the water. We were amused to see the little birds insist on having a bath on even the coldest days.

Yes, you'd think they'd feel the cold too much wouldn't you !!!
These past 2 winters have been such a job to keep the water thawed.

I am on constant "cat chasing" duty as they keep coming in the garden ,I keep telling the chicks to keep quiet LOL

i have a realy well overgrown front garden including realy thick ivy that i love on the house wear many birds nest and have young . i do get the odd black bird or thrush nest im my honeysuckle in the back garden but i dont incourage them to nest in the back as my springer eats the fledglings if they dont fly strate away im afraid .

Hi I have 3 bird boxes in my back garden 2 have been used by Blue tits and had young

We have three boxes, all eyed up and the one that was chosen was the one which was the smallest and hanging on a chain from a hanging basket bracket! Lots of coming and going, Blue Tits I think. It does swing alot!!!

At this time of year we feel we are living in a bird box! Being surrounded by trees, meadows, mountains, old stone barns and farm animals we get amazing sights of the sparrow gang with their 'terraced' nests in the eaves of the barn; swifts sliding into very narrow gaps in the stone walls; martins in their DIY nests under the overhang of our roof as well as territorial displays around our garden from the blackbirds, robins, redstarts and black redstarts nesting in the scrubby bushes growing in a nearby derelict barn; white wagtails regularly patrol the sheep compound as soon as the sheep have gone to the fields for the day and .. most exciting of all .. we think a pair of short-toed eagles have a nest near a point of rock visible from our balcony. They nested there a couple of years ago and we often saw the fluffy youngster sitting on the rock, seemingly oblivious of the smaller birds mobbing him. If he ever felt threatened by local buzzards he'd emit a call similar to that of a seagull and mum or dad would soon appear to chase them off! It's very busy here!!