A couple of years ago my son gave me a very nice bird box for Christmas. It was made in a work shop just a few hundred yards from his home and was cylindrical with a domed top. The blue tits nested in it last year and were successful, but this year it’s a different story as Great Spotted Woodpeckers made a nest hole in a poplar not 20 yards away. The woodpeckers were a very noisy family, the young constantly cheeping for yet more food, while the blue tits hardly made a sound. I don’t think even Magpies would raid a Woodpeckers nest, who would want a peck from a beak that drills into wood? The Blue Tits, with no weapons to protect them, have to sit quiet but, alas, the Woodpeckers spotted them and when the chicks were a good sized meal they drilled into my lovely box and took the lot! I do love to see and hear the Woodpeckers, but I like the Blue Tits too, but as they say, “every one has to make a living”! Wendy Bathurst