A Small Problem

Before we start this post, I must tell you that the only way I got these pictures on here was by placing them on a USB stick and then using the laptop rather than my PC! How is that for go figure? and simple? Although still haven't figures out as to why my PC will not load pictures on days with an 'A' in them??

Many weeks ago we had a small problem with our cat...she wanted to constantly sit outside the door that lead into our roof space!

We could hear something and Steve guessed that we maybe had a bird making their way into the roof. This was not something that we had ever actually confirmed, but the cat was still happy to sit outside the door when ever she had the chance.

However not long ago we started to hear a few little chirps and guessed that yes in deed we had a bird nest in the roof and the eggs had obviously hatched!

This has driven the cat even madder than she already is!

Steve mentioned it at dinner the other evening, how to deal with the babies in the roof?

1. Leave well alone and let the bird finish with the nest and then move it and block up the holes?
2. Go in and move the nest straight away, block up the hole and live with the consequences?

One of the biggest things was whether we would be able to find the nest? Would we have to empty out half the stuff in the roof to gain access to the nest? Would we be able to find it easily?

Today Steve went into the roof to find out what was there?

He came downstairs and told me he had something to show me, that not to worry we would have no worries finding the nest?

On going into the roof space and putting my head round the little door leading in, this is what we found....

This nest is just under 1m tall

This one bird had created this nest for her babies, or baby as there was only 1 in there.

We did however find an egg on the floor but on further inspection have decided that we think it got knocked out long ago.

Alex took the egg to school the other day for show and tell.

Now we are well aware of how she got into the roof. This next picture shows you the little gap we have just under the eaves by the beams of the roof.

small gap by beam of roof

What gets me though is that when you look at the roof line at the back of the house....someone has actually blocked the same areas there!

nice blocked gap by beam of roof

So my question would then be....well why not do all of them to prevent it happening at all?

Tonight Steve has been in the roof and sadly the nest is empty. We can not find any sign of the baby bird but feel that it looked too young to be ready to fly away so soon. Maybe we disturbed something by opening the door into the area etc?

So now we have a clean up to do. Feel we are going to need a black bag to get all that nest out of the roof and then sometime during the summer we will have to organise little planks of wood to be nailed over the holes, just like the back of the roof has, so the birds are unable to get into there again next year.