Hi all

Just thought you guys might be interested to hear the outcome of an on-going
bird box saga.

A couple of years ago it became apparent that, although there was some
interest shown in our bird box, there were no takers for residency.
It looked as though this may be due to the entrance hole having been
enlarged by previous visitors. So I made a face plate out of aluminium to
cover the existing larger hole and present a neater and smaller version to
potential clients.
There was again lots of interest (and plenty of loud beak knocking) but
still no takers. So I took off the face plated and made another out of
ply - thinking that maybe the birds didn't like the fact that their beaks
were now well blunt and they had not managed to modify the entrance to their
own personal taste.
About 3 months ago I went up the ladder to retrieve the box and fit the ply
faceplate. As soon as I disturbed the box, a loud buzzing sound prompted me
to abandon the re-furb rather hurriedly. Despite regular observation since,
I have not seen any insect activity around the box.
Yesterday, I plucked up courage to go back up the ladder. Having covered
the entrance hole with duct tape, I detached the birdbox and returned to
terra firma to investigate. As anticipated, there was a
fortunately-abandoned insect nest of some sort buried in the old bird
nesting material - google images suggest that this is either a bee or
hornets former home. Not a large settlement, the nest volume is maybe equal
to a tennis ball at most. Still I wouldn't have liked to incur the wrath of
its inhabitants nonetheless.

So I have now fitted the ply facia and hope it will be more appealing to the
local bird population next year.

Thanks for reading

Phil