999 emergency for the wren family.

Well done you! They have enough dangers to live through without not even getting started. Thank goodness you were around to see - how distraught you would have been to come back and find them deceased and tangled together. I hope to told the Mother Wren to be a bit more choosy about her nesting material in future.

Gosh they are very lucky little birds, that horrible thread is darn near impossible to snap and they would never have survived, thats your good deeds really topped up S'gran, the birds must have known you were helping them as they didn't seem at all panicked in your hands.....

Thank you for sharing this experience with us all.
We have all learned that wild creatures will accept
human interference if they are in trouble.

BRAVO!!! WONDERFUL!!!!

The man made fibre gets everywhere causing untold damage...the beach we go to in Scotland has masses of it on the beach tangled in the seaweed etc....thsts mostly from the small fishing boats, its supposed to be a conservation area....

thanks so much for sharing your wren emergency, you did so well rescuing without scaring them....so pleased it had a happy ending.....

I meant to say also that the photography is wonderful, so close and detailed, certainly captures the drama of the moment.....maybe should be sent to the RSPB to warn folk of the dangers of plastic twine....

Brilliant photo,s ! and what a good warning about all things plastic .

While walking to the boat rental dock at my favorite fishing lake I noticed a Baltimore Oriole's sack like nest hanging from the branch of a tree near the dock. Upon a closer look I noticed that the nest was woven almost completely of fishing line discarded by those fishermen who threw away cut line while rigging up their poles at the dock.

Thank you all for your kind words. We were upset at their dilemma but so glad we were able to help. Apparently dad does the nest building. He then offers the OH a choice of around five nests. She lays between 5 and 7 eggs and then she incubates them. She will rear two broods each year. That takes between 14-18 days and then after another similar time scale the babies are ready to fly. This is the first time they have used a nest box in the garden. We have found a nest in the yew tree and others in the stone heap in other years. The nest is beautiful and roofed over. It is almost ball shaped with a little access hole. I dk what has been constructed inside the box. We are feeling very priveleged this year. We have four swallow nests and some blackbirds, tits, robins and dunnocks that are busy collecting food for young ones. It is a good year for babies.

PS Thanks for advice re RSPB Pam. I phoned the media office and the lady I spoke to was very pleased to access GOY and see the blog. She did not need me to do anything and I was pleased to agree that the RSPB can use the information as they wish.

Oh thats good news, its awful stuff really isn't it....i try to use soft twine if I can but plastics everywhere these days....

Well done so happy you managed to save these wrens we have a bird box with a cam and two years on the trot blue tits nested but failed to raise the chicks makes me wonder if I shouldn't have put the box up.

Most interesting Blog I have seen on Goy this year very well done

Very interesting blog and great pictures, well done for stepping in and saving them!

Pam everybody seems to use the blue nylon rope as it is virtually unbreakable. Peter it is very disappointing that the blue tits failed to raise their chicks. I take it they did lay eggs. Did any hatch? We have lots of bird boxes because we have lots of birds but they also nest around the garden. I dk what made the wrens decide to use the nest box because we have never seen them inspect any of the boxes. OH made the entry holes to fit the blue tits and one year a great tit chewed away at the hole until he could gain entry. Another one ripped apart the roof of a box to get in. We did put up an open fronted box suitable for robins but a sparrow nested in it. After playing on the computer watching the birds is the most time consuming activity we have. Its lovely to sit and watch the birds. Thank you Bjs and Louisa I'm sure we only did what anyone would have done. I'm glad you all enjoyed the photos.The wrens were still not bothered about OH today. I just hope they wise up to the dangers around them quickly.

Thinking back to when we were young everything was 'biodegradeable' and recycling was part of life!.....thing were too expensive to be thrown away on a whim
Now its a plastic world......

Yes the eggs hatched but one by one the chicks died both years and they haven't nested in the box for the last two years.
We have an open fronted box and we have seen robins taking nesting material in about a month ago but since then we haven't seen them about its behind a clematis so well hidden.

Pamg I remember parcels arrived tied up with string. It was boiled and stored away for future use. I don't think anybody boils their whites (sheets etc.) anymore. Sugar was delivered from the grocer in blue paper bags which were also kept for reuse. Before I left school I worked in a Deli as a Saturday girl. One of the first things I had to do was weight out and parcel up the sugar, salt, cheese and butter for customer orders. Those were the days.
Peter I would have been very sad if that had happened here. I wonder if the parents failed to find enough food for the babies. Apparently each blue tit chick eats 100 yes 100 caterpillars a day. Blue tits normally have in excess of 8 chicks to feed. That means 800+ trips to collect 800 feeds. I am 99% an organic gardener. I worry that having set up a wildlife garden I might attract then kill off birds. The parents might have abandoned the nest because they were being harried by magpies or worse, Although the babies would have been safe inside the box the parents might have had to run a guantlet of predators. They might have been taken by a sparrowhawk. Maybe shifting the box would be a good idea. Our boxes all face south east and are near or under plants. Babies need somewhere close by to land on when they take their first flight. Our winds are predominantly from the west. Our swallows take their babies out on windy days as the wind lifts them on to the roof. I do hope you have the joy of seeing a robin family soon.
PS. the photos were taken using the largest size number of pixels possible then edited on Picture Manager to crop and enlarge them. It is better than using specs. lol.

well done on the rescue.
it is so sad that many of our seabirds end up dying because of nylon line and net fragments being used in the nesting materials.

Thank you SBG. I think we understand that the stuff is lying around on the shores of the rivers and beaches but I was surprised to hear today that it also happened where a mother blackbird got stuck in her nest. She was rescued and cut free by vigilant gardeners and raised her family. Our babies were in the garden on the south side of the house today feeding on seeds and whatever else on the raised bed. It gives you a good feeling to know we helped save the next generation.

Oh, poor little things. So pleased you were there and able to free them and that they are doing well now. Baby birds are causing havoc in my garden at the moment - they seem to think my greenhouse is a drop in centre :)

Drop in the greenhouse or drop on the greenhouse?

They go through the open door, Loosestrife2, but never seem capable of finding their way out until I give a helping hand. Take a look at my latest blog and you will see what I mean :)

En suite facilities in the greenhouse? Well ???? LOL Gee.

Fantastic....well done!
What lovely little birds.
I once NEARLY had Wrens nest in my last garden.Mu brother in law and I watched through the kitchen window one wet MayDay Bank Holiday Monday as Mr Wren built a nest in my back garden(in my winter Jasmine) but, unfortunately it wasn't used. then, some weeks later, Irealised he'd actually made two nests. I was told that the male makes up to 5 or 6 nests and the female selects one.

Paul the nests are a work of art and to make that many must take a lot of work for such a tiny bird.
We had another disaster yesterday when our latest Swallows nest was raided and four eggs lay broken and the contents smeared across the path. We cannot imagine who would have been responsible for the attack because the top of the nest is close to the roof timber above and the roof overhangs a long way. There is no visible damage to the nest itself.

Always upsetting to see eggs on the ground!

Paul on the SRGC forum a member showed a video of a swift throwing an egg out of a nest then attacking the female. The consensus was that the male had turned up after the female had taken another partner. He would want his genes to be in the eggs and that led him to get rid of the usurpers egg. Given that this nest was not damaged and the eggs had landed under it I'm wondering if that is what happened here.

Crikey....I've never heard of that before....they're more like some humans than I thought!!!!!

I know. We are told not to endow our pets with human feelings but it is hard not to when you hear stories like this.