The National Trust and local conservation and school groups have set up more than 100 nest boxes around Padley over the last thirty years, but Mark and colleagues realised that resident blue and great tits were able to move into the boxes before the migrant flycatchers arrived back from the Ivory Coast and Liberia in the first weeks of April. So to solve the housing crisis, the rangers began corking up half the boxes over the winter, and only uncorking them once the first pied flycatchers returned.
“After months of working in the woods in the freezing cold over the winter, to see the birds coming back is amazing,” said Mark. “It makes all the hard work worthwhile.” The National Trust is working to keep the woodlands around Padley attractive to flycatchers and other wildllife by managing open land around the ancient trees, and keeping out grazing animals that can damage young trees and other woodland plants.
Along with the nestbox corking, the strategy has worked: pied flycatcher nests in the Trust’s boxes have increased from 9 in 2000 to 29 last year. The species is becoming rare in many parts of the UK and was recently added to the official ‘red data list’ of UK birds which are of concern due to a decline in numbers.
“The woods around Padley are one of the best places to see pied flycatchers in this area, and it’s really nice to have a red data list species increasing here,” said Mark. “We’re now getting other groups coming to see how we’ve done it.”
