BIRDS HAVE RETURNED TO MY NESTING BOX FOURTEEN YEARS IN A ROW.

I remember well the second year I had put up a nesting box. The first year it had no takers and I had assumed that the hole I had made for the box was too small(the size of a ten pence piece), even for blue tits. I then make the hole a little bigger and a Great Tit pair, after checking it out over a week or so decided to make their home in it for the next few weeks.Then for a week or so there was fevorish activity around the box as the birds gathered moss, wool and anything else suitable to make a nest. Then suddenly nothing happened at all. I had actually thought that they had been chased away by a cat or other predator.I decided to have a look and after climbing the step ladder I carefully opened the roof of the box. As I looked in I heard a sharp sound of feathers made by the mother bird as she tried to frighten off her uninvited guest. Indeed she succeeded well as I was so startled by her that I nearly fell of the ladder!But all was well with the birds and a few weeks later the chicks hatched out of their eggs and back and forth went mum and dad from the box as they searched for catapillars for the young chicks.I remember at this time many jobs were under threat by the new owners of the Bank were I worked. However when I came home from work and was changing my clothes I checked out what was happening at the bottom my garden through my binoculars. It was there that I was lost as if in another world ,a magical place like the garden of Eden, with God's creation.I was not thinking about my job or the implications if I lost it but rather what was happening with my little birds that I had a special care for.The parents put a lot of hard work into rearing them but it was only God who had designed them to fly and also given the parents the instinct to rear them! The youtube video above shows the chicks at different stages before they are ready to leave the nest.

Later I put up another box with a tiny hole a few years later and it was taken over by a tiny pair of Wrens which gave me a double blessing!



'What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows'

'Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young— a place near your altar, O LORD Almighty, my King and my God'.