Starling Nest Box 3S

Product Description

This Schwegler nest box 3S with its 45mm entrance hole is ideal for Starlings. It can be hung on walls, fences or larger trees & also provides a good overnight shelter for Great Spotted & Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers. Other species such as Pied Flycatchers & Nuthatches have also been known to breed in these boxes. Because of the relatively large entrance hole, the interior is well lit which encourages occupation. Schwegler woodcrete boxes are supplied with hangers & aluminium nails. Starlings need your help! If there’s a bird with an image problem then it has to be the starling. Long regarded as the shiny-suited spiv of the bird world, it’s one species that few people welcome on their feeders or birdtable. Yet of all our garden birds, there are few as entertaining. Starlings are born pop stars. When they sing they put their whole heart & soul into the delivery, puffing out their throat & waving their wings to emphasise each note. Every individual has its own song, throwing in little phrases of mimicry that might range from a cat to a car alarm. Singing starlings provide the very best in back garden entertainment but to see starlings at their most spectacular you have to witness a winter roost. Here tens of thousands of birds – sometimes even millions – gather together. Before settling down for the night they indulge in extraordinarily beautiful mass flying displays with thousands of birds turning as one. There are few sights in the natural world that are so spectacular. Sadly, such mass roosts are no longer as common as they once were. During the last 20 years starling numbers have dropped alarmingly & no-one really knows why. Nor is this decline just restricted to the UK: the fall in numbers has been just as apparent throughout north-west Europe. In Sweden & Finland there is a long tradition of providing nest boxes for starlings. They like a roomy box with an ample hole that allows them to pop in & out easily. They start prospecting for boxes in mid-winter, long before the nesting season approaches. Once the male has found a box he fancies he will spend a lot of time around it, singing & trying to impress the females. Starlings are omnivorous, so there’s not much on the birdtable they won’t eat, & they will even perform considerable acrobatics to raid the peanut feeder. Don’t begrudge them their food, & consider hanging out fat balls especially for them. After all, starlings need friends too.