That Sickening Crunch..
So what’s happening here then?
You may recall from last time that Mike has been engaged in yet another battle with the resident wildlife. In this case the woodpeckers. In years past Woodrow et al have stolen callistemon blooms, made off with the straw that forms the substance of the house roof AND woken us up at some ungodly hour of the morning by drumming on the bathroom soil pipe.
Yes, you. And hide you might.
Great Spotted Woodpecker.
They are glorious birds but, as anyone who gives them garden room will know, they are also aggressive predators of the young of smaller species. Blue and great tits especially. Tits often seek out purpose built boxes in which to build their nests but that isn’t necessarily enough of a defence. The woodpecker can use his or her fearsome beak to hammer away at the entrance hole and enlarge it sufficiently to get inside the box.
Exhibit A
(Don’t be confused by the side hole, it’s normally covered by a flap and is used for cleaning out the box after the nesting season.)
Fortunately there is a solution.
Most new nest boxes come these days with a metal plate around the entrance hole: beak resistant. It’s also possible to purchase the plates separately for attaching to a box as a retrofit. Mike has retrieved the two nest boxes from the woodland and performed the necessary upgrade. Flushed with success he even went further and created a third box, using the existing design as a template. Hence the need for the new drill bit and my getting inundated by facebook ads for tool companies.. still.
Nest box entrance plates come in different sizes for different birds and to avoid any possibility of discrimination we have provided one of each.
From the left then, 25mm for blue, coal and marsh tits; 28mm for great tits, tree sparrows and pied flycatchers; 32mm for house sparrows and nuthatches. Mike suggested putting a label on the front of each box so the birds know which is which. Might have to be a picture since I doubt they read English. Let’s hope there’s no fights.
So all’s well that ends well. Yes? Not exactly.
Increasingly, in the UK anyway, nature documentaries now feature an extra bit on the end: the behind the scenes exposé; the out-takes. So allow me to introduce you to the rusty duck Diaries. To get the pictures of the nest boxes during and after construction I had the camera mounted on the tripod, not very high up either because the nest boxes aren’t very big and I’d placed them for photographic purposes directly on the ground. The trouble is the concrete path I was resting the tripod on, which I thought would be perfectly safe, is on a slope. I’ve put the tripod down there countless times before but this time, clearly, I had just exceeded the tipping point.
With a sickening crunch the tripod and camera fell to the ground. At first I thought I’d just scuffed the end of the lens and although not very pretty it did still fully retract. But alas no. Even though the camera had not fallen a great distance the force was still enough to break it off the tripod. Worse than that the tripod fixing was ripped clean out of the body of the camera leaving a gaping hole in the housing. Needless to say Nikon don’t make this model anymore. It was perfect for me too. I have ordered a very similar camera from Canon so we’ll see how that goes.
Agapanthus inapertus subsp. pendulus ‘Graskop’
Not bad for hand held.
Ouch! I know how awful it is when a favourite and much-loved camera has its final exposure. Not quite as dramatic as yours but my beloved Canon packed up just before Christmas – despite having a brand-new battery, the lens flatly refused to retract. Much wailing ensued, as my Canon had been well and truly superceded by more sophisticated models, one of which found its way into my Christmas stocking (not a brand new Canon, but in as-new condition).
I didn’t know about those metal plates – will have to get some of those for our nest boxes as I noticed that the one used by our blue tits this year looks as though someone has tried to get in there!
I’m glad you managed to get a replacement camera. I’ve now got mine but not had a chance to try it out yet. If the promised dry day occurs tomorrow (not holding my breath) I shall be out there experimenting!
We too have Gt. spotted Woodpeckers and we have Jackdaws. I don’t know who I should blame but one of my nest boxes had a metal plate and during the spring i found the nest box on the woodland floor with half the front pecked away, metal plate and all, you would now think it was an open fronted box for a robin ! I have decided that concrete ones are the answer, it might give them a headache! I hope yours are successful.
Oh that doesn’t sound very promising. I can definitively say it is woodpeckers here because I caught Mrs W in the act. It does take them a while to enlarge the hole sufficiently and as the box is hollow the tapping echoes through the wood. Hopefully it will give me a chance to head off any further attempts before they get too far. It could also be squirrels? They chew through wood as we discovered on our bird feeders. If all else fails it will be concrete for me too!
When my husband slipped and fell — hitting his head — on our wet deck earlier this spring, his first thought was “is the camera OK?” since he was taking photos right after a rainfall. Luckily both he and the camera are OK. I hate having to learn a new tool when the one I am familiar with and love gives up the ghost, for whatever reason. Thanks for the lesson on birdhouses. Good luck with the new camera.
It’s like having a new computer isn’t it. Everything’s changed. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to get another Nikon, to reduce the learning curve a bit!
The metal entrance holes are such a good idea, keeping small birds nice and safe. So sorry to hear about your camera!
Hi Jill. Lovely to hear from you.
A couple of years ago the woodpeckers attacked a nest box that still had a brood inside it. Fortunately they were about to fledge anyway, so we kept the woodpeckers at bay while Mum blue tit got all the young birds out of the box and into the rhododendrons we had in the garden at the time!
My first comment disappeared so my apologies if this proves to be a duplicate. When I saw the title of your post and the photo of the ladder, I feared that either you or Mike had taken a serious spill. Although the loss of a well-used camera is a sorry thing, I was relieved to learn that events hadn’t involved broken bones or cracked skulls. Good work on fortification of the birdhouses.
My heart is in my mouth with so many jobs that have to be done around here at the moment. The last thing I want is to end up in Accident & Emergency. It is usually my job to hold the ladder if it is placed somewhere dangerous. Which means the person ending up with the cracked skull might well be me.
Sorry about your camera. Hope you get on with the new one. Woodpeckers are fine-looking birds but can be destructive, as you say. Those metal plates are a great idea (although, reading Pauline’s comment, it will be interesting to see if they work!). Good luck 🙂
It will be very interesting to see if the metal plates work. Hopefully when the woodpeckers discover it isn’t as straightforward as they think they will go off and look for easier pickings elsewhere, like bugs under bark.
Whew!. My initial reaction was as Kris P’s. Glad to know it was something replaceable. I did the same, somewhat a few weeks ago–the very light tripod, great for carrying around, fell over. Now I know the virtues of a weighty one. In my case the camera was fine, but the lens no longer adjusts freely, so now a new lens is needed. Using the macro for a while instead, until I can come up with a convincing excuse to buy a new lens.
Didn’t know anything about Spotted Woodpeckers. Bravo to Mike for those metal shields on the birdhouses. Here it is the crows that feed on the baby birds of other species. The local acorn woodpecker sticks to wood, trees, and most especially acorns. Due to building code we have no exposed wood on the house (fire danger).
Being only little I really struggle with the heavier tripod and always opt for the lightweight one. Perhaps I too should learn the lesson. It’s an expensive lesson to learn too. Crows here as well, plus magpies and jays. The smaller birds have a hard time of it!
There was a sickening crunch this morning when I trod on a snail that had parked itself in the doorway of our laundry room. The chickens appreciated the unexpected sushi breakfast.
Don’t you just hate it when that happens. It’s a horrible sound. Even though I am no fan of snails.
Denise – tell me you had shoes on, please!!
😱
Fear not – I did! My good old gardening clogs.
Phew!
OH NO!!!! A camera bites the dust. Bummer. I luckily upgraded my tripod BEFORE the mishap….how very un-me.
Smart move!
Such a shame about your camera, I know how much you liked it and it suited your needs. Hope the new one proves as good.
Mr TT used a homemade plate on our birdbox, fashioned from a spare piece of lead. He went for armour plating in a big way but birds have declined to use the box and nested in a hole in the cob nearby instead.
Stupid birds. Protection from woodpeckers and a nuclear attack! They won’t get that from cob.
Oh no! Must admit I saw the ladder and thought your husband had fallen and broken something. Phew! On the other hand poor camera! Great shot of the peekaboo Woody. In our last house we had a pergola under our bedroom window – baby woodies at 5am can be very annoying, but seeing them run up and down the window ledge was so cute. But yes, nature is mean sometimes, but only to make sure the natural balance remains on an even keel. On the other hand I think the metal protectors are a brilliant idea. Kaffir lily looks beautiful and I love the agapanthus too.
We used to have the woodies bring their babies back to the bird table and indeed they are very cute. They haven’t done that recently. Perhaps all the building work noise of recent years has put them off.
I was amazed to see the Kaffir lily. Usually here they bloom much later. I looked back on the blog to the last time I photographed it.. November! It’s starting to feel quite autumnal. Too early, I’ve got too much still to do.
Yes – mine are usually around winter. The weather has thrown them out of kilter.
It has. I have even had hellebores out!
Great photo of the Spotted Woodpecker, you could be employed to come to Australia and take photos of our sneaky Currawongs, always on the lookout for small birds and their young, at this time of the year. Really good to see the metal rings around the birdhouses, I must look out for them here. Oh bad luck about the camera, always a bit tricky getting used to a new one, however, new cameras and phones all seem to take amazing photos these days, even small portable ones.
I accept the job offer!
I should also, obviously, have to spend a lot of time photographing those even cheekier cockatoos..
I’m just imagining the woodpeckers surprise when they hammer against those metal plates. Beak crunch! We had such problems with aggressive bluebirds taking over the swallow nesting boxes that we bought boxes especially for swallows with flattened, elongated holes. It seems to work. The bluebirds get all excited about nesting but clearly don’t like the hole size and move on after a day or two. Fascinating that they are so picky about their home entrances!
Having watched the tits house hunting here in early Spring, I can vouch for the fact that they are extremely picky. I hope they decide positively next year, now we’ve gone to all the trouble of protecting them.
Your bluebirds are so pretty, shame they are aggressive as well.
My heart missed a beat at the title – I’m vastly relieved you are both ok. A camera is replaceable! And it’s a cast iron reason for an upgrade!
I tried very hard to find an upgrade. But none of the alternatives gave me what I needed, at least not at an affordable price. So I pretty much have like for like. So far so good..
Yes, you are a real tease with the title and that first picture – we all expected it to be the sickening crunch of bones but no, it’s only a camera…! Those woodpeckers do lead you a merry dance, don’t they? After seeing a couple of babies earlier in the year we haven’t seen any since then
OK, I admit it. I was naughty with the title.
For the first time this year Mrs W has stayed around. Normally they all leave after the young have fledged, and come back sometime late winter. Unfortunately she has used her time to work on nest box entrances, which is why we had to take a stand! Hopefully she will now divert her industry to a hollow tree.. there are plenty enough around!
I don’t want to be a killjoy but I have heard of woodpeckers drilling a hole in the base of nesting boxes to get at the chicks.hope yours haven’t learned that trick. Shame about your camera.
That thought did cross my mind. It does take them a while though and because the box is hollow it makes a noise. Hopefully we’ll have long enough to head them off. We’ll see how it goes.