Valentine's day.

Folklore has it that today's the day when the birds choose a mate, it's also the launch of Nestbox week see The Wildlife Trusts Home Tweet Home
With this in mind we've been looking at the nesting sites around the CJS Office, there are several artificial house martin nests under the eaves and a couple of traditional nest boxes which despite being a moved a couple of times have yet to attract that first time buyer. The garden and surrounding countryside obviously has sufficient suitable sites. We know that blackbirds nest in the ivy climbing up the fence, house sparrows in the climbers especially the clematis and both wrens and blue tits must nest close by as we see the newly fledged young later in the year. However just across the lane during the winter five mature deciduous trees including a beautiful horse chestnut, plus several more shrubby ones such as alders, were felled for safety reasons and now there is large gap. Which raises concerns for our owls, of which there are many mostly vociferous ones. So we're looking for a suitable site for a tawny owl tube, there are a couple under consideration. We'll let know which if either proves acceptable.