Great spotted woodpecker

[birdsallpl]

I have a number of nesting boxes for tits in my garden. Yesterday I noticed that the entrance to one of the boxes had been opened to about 70mm. It had obviously been done by a woodpecker not a squirrel. On inspection the nest was empty. I knew woodpeckers were carnivores but had never experienced it first hand. We have great spotted regularly on our feeders.

It is the only box attacked like this in all the years I have been putting them up.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of behaviour?

[firdom]

Yes not had ours totally opened but they have tried wife and i sat in the garden a couple of years back watching the Bluetits about to fledge when out of no where a greater spotted woodpecker went to the box put his head in and took a young tit i now put a cane with a plastic bag outside the nest's when they are about to fledge seems to work. silly thing is once they fledge the sparrow hawk takes them .

[Penelope]

Watched one empty a box full of blue tit chicks last spring in a friends garden.

 

I have a number of nesting boxes for tits in my garden. Yesterday I noticed that the entrance to one of the boxes had been opened to about 70mm. It had obviously been done by a woodpecker not a squirrel. On inspection the nest was empty. I knew woodpeckers were carnivores but had never experienced it first hand. We have great spotted regularly on our feeders.
It is the only box attacked like this in all the years I have been putting them up.
Has anyone else experienced this kind of behaviour?

[birdsallpl]

Talking to another chap this morning who said he had screwed an aluminium sheet with the right size hole over the front of his boxes as a prevention. Sounds like a good idea.

[Lord Geordie]

Talking to another chap this morning who said he had screwed an aluminium sheet with the right size hole over the front of his boxes as a prevention. Sounds like a good idea.

Seen this done on a friends bird boxes! seems like a good idea! some scrap galvy or alloy is ideal.

[fenboy]

Yes the way to go is a metal plate on the box front with the correct size hole.

[39TDS]

I have got two of the metal plates that go over bird box holes.

I don't want them so will give them to anyone that will put them to use.

[norfolk dumpling]

Tits nest in the barge boards of our old cottage - using the holes which I think were for thatching in days past (house is 400 yrs old) but last year we were still asleep when something sounding remarkably like a pneumatic drill started attacking the end of our house. Yep it was a woody deciding he needed a hole the size of your hand to get at the fledglings. Wife flew out of bed in a panic. I fairly quickly grasped the situation as I had watched the parent tits feeding the day before and a buddy had told me earlier how 6 martins nests had been taken off his house that year by the same culprit. Not an easy repair job either as nearly at the apex of the gable end - that's nature for you, wonderful but frustrating sometimes.

[hillmouse]

We have over 300 nest boxes out on the estate, all made and monitored by the retired farm steward. He has had to make plates for every single one and the best method is to keep the lids off soup and bean tins, drill a suitable sized hole and then tack them to the wooden box fronts. He burrs the edges of the hole back to avoid sharp edges. Amazing how apparently innocent birds like woodpeckers and moorhens can be so damned evil with the eggs and chicks of other species. Protein comes in many forms.

[islandgun]

You do realise that you may be altering the evolution of woodpeckers, giving them metal to break open, will eventually give them a more durable beak and larger neck muscles eventually they will be able to break down doors and take small children,