Wanted: village des res
SMOKERS trying to kick the habit in Boat of Garten were given an extra incentive by a family of blue tits which made their home in a cigarette stubber at the entrance to the village’s community hall.
Several chicks were reared in the container, despite it already being rather full with discarded cigarette butts when the pair of blue tits first moved in several weeks ago.
A handwritten sign was stuck onto the stubber by locals to warn smokers that a family had taken up residence inside the unsual nesting place.
Boat of Garten man Jason Thorpe, who took the photograph, said: "The blue tits were living there for just a week or two, as they produce their young quickly and then move on."
He said that the stubber was cleared out after the birds departed. It was "quite a mess", Mr Thorpe said, and it was clear that they had made their home on top of the pile of cigarette ends.
Mr Richard Thaxton, site manager at the RSPB’s nearby Loch Garten reserve, said that the birds were opportunistic nesters, although he had never known a cigarette stubber to be used.
He said: "Hole-nesting species that habitually nest in cavities can potentially use whatever holes they can find. It needn’t always be their preferred natural site, like a hole in a tree or even a custom-made hole in a nest box.
"If food is available to them, they will look for opportunities to nest nearby, whether it is a natural site or a man-made one like this.
"This applies in particular to those species that habitually live alongside man and his activities, like garden birds for example.
"Blackbirds have been known to nest under the wheel-arches of jacked-up cars in garages and on the back of farm tractors left parked for a week or so. Birds like robins and spotted flycatchers have been known to nest in post boxes, on shelves in sheds, on top of street lamps and in all sorts of weird places.
"I have even known a robin to nest in a kettle wedged into a bush. To birds it is just a hole or a ledge on which to nest. It’s only us that see it as a cigarette stubber-box!"
The family of blue tits have now flown their unusual nest.
