The Nest Box Project at La Cassinazza

During the course of the winter of 2000-2001 we began a project to install nest boxes at La Cassinazza.
We started by installing over one-hundred nesting boxes for songbirds, which we then monitored over the course of the following breeding seasons.
The nest boxes installed during the first phase of the project were built out of recycled wood; starting with the winter of 2002-2003, we were provided with the adequate tools and machinery to build log-nest boxes. In following years, only log-nest box were used. We also installed some larger nest boxes for Tawny Owls, Stock Doves, Hoopoes, and Eurasian Starling.
Nest boxes are installed during the winter, in order to be in place by the end of February. Overall, we installed several hundreds nest boxes.
Nest boxes must be replaced when wear or other factors make them unusable. In the absence of specific problems, nest boxes usually last 3 to 4 years.
In most cases, they need to be replaced after being damaged – directly or indirectly – by heavy thunderstorms, or after being occupied by hornets, which engulf them with the cellulose-based material with which they build their nests.
Increasingly often, nest boxes are being damaged by Great Spotted Woodpeckers, which have learned to seek out the insects and larvae living inside them, and which may even prey upon nestlings. The hardest hit were those made out of recycled wood, so that we discontinued the use of such nest boxes. With regards to log-nest boxes, the woodpeckers just enlarge the entrance hole.
From the very first breeding season, occupation rate turned out to be almost 100%.
During the first four years of the project, the great majority of nest boxes was used by Tree Sparrows, while Blue Tits and Great Tits occupied only a few boxes each.
In later years, with more and more nest boxes being installed, Tits suffered less competion from Tree Sparrows and now Blue Tits nesting in nest boxes are a common sight at La Cassinazza. The few nest boxes occupied by Wrynecks are a particularly successful aspect of our project, since the species was previously absent as a breeder at La Cassinazza. Even Great Spotted Woodpeckers found nest boxes conveniet for egg laying.
At the end of the breeding season, while cleaning out the nest boxes, we found a variety of other hosts, including: tree frogs, lizards, wasps, hornets, ants, bedbugs, insect larva, and several litters of Common Doormice. The most common parasites found in the nest boxes were fleas and mites.

Other types of artificial nests

Starting in February 2001, along the banks of several canals, we prepared some suitable nesting sites for Kingfishers. The work consists of making a meter-long stretch of the bank of a canal smooth and vertical. In some cases, we were able to prepare suitable nesting sites for Kingfishers with the help of a mechanical excavator.
We then dug a shallow tunnel, which, if chosen by a Kingfisher pair, would then become the entrance hole to their nest.
The intense spring rains led to the partial caving in of some of the banks we had prepared. Evidently, only certain sections of the canals have banks that are compact enough to be suitable for such work.
Two or three of these tunnels are used each year as nesting sites, sometimes for two consecutive broods.

We placed artificial cement nests for House Martins under the eaves of a building.
House Martins occupied practically all of them, and formed a small colony of 40/45 pairs, which breed exclusively inside these artificial nests.

Floating platforms

Starting in 2002, the large floating platforms placed in the middle of the lake were finally used successfully by breeding terns. A previous attempt by Common Terns in 2001 failed to fledge young, most likely due to the nestlings being predated. In spring 2002, we placed some tiles above the platform, in order to create a shelter under which chicks could protect themselves from predators and the sun.
Since then, our little trick is working year after year: the nestlings spend almost all of their time taking shelter underneath the tiles, and eventually fledge successfully.