Birds and hedge cutting

Rigsby

I was very sad and a little annoyed yesterday. I heard a huge commotion of bird sound. When I went to investigate, I found a neighbour three doors away trimming his hedges. He had destroyed a number of nests. While he is quite entitled to cut his hedges, if he had waited a week or two it would have been ok as the young birds would have left the nest. I said this to my neighbour and he said he was not aware. It is important to be aware of this at this time of the year as our sparrow population is in severe decline and need all the help we can give them.

colmranger

Rigsby wrote:

I was very sad and a little annoyed yesterday. I heard a huge commotion of bird sound. When I went to investigate, I found a neighbour three doors away trimming his hedges. He had destroyed a number of nests. While he is quite entitled to cut his hedges, if he had waited a week or two it would have been ok as the young birds would have left the nest. I said this to my neighbour and he said he was not aware. It is important to be aware of this at this time of the year as our sparrow population is in severe decline and need all the help we can give them.

It is against the law to cut hedges during Spring/Summer.

The closed season for cutting runs from March 1st until 1st September.

Take a look at this http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2000/en/act/pub/0038/sec0046.html#partiv-chapii-sec46

doctor evil

My neighbour did the same, pretty sure he destroyed one nest, no way he could not have known as he was putting the branches into a shredder.

There should be more education on the matter, people want to get involved more with their gardens when the weather is nice.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Rigsby wrote:

While he is quite entitled to cut his hedges, ...

That's just it. He is NOT entitled to cut from the start of march to the end of August. It is ok to trim a small hedge but not anything that puts nests at risk. You should tell him so. I (living in the country) have had to tell hedge trimmers to stop on several occasions and the vast majority of people accept the point and don't make an issue of it. Some of the biggest culprits are the Tidy Towns groups who cut hedges in June in time for the judging, and then they look for points for environmental efforts - such hipocrites!

Rigsby

Brecken Thundering Principal wrote:

That's just it. He is NOT entitled to cut from the start of march to the end of August. It is ok to trim a small hedge but not anything that puts nests at risk. You should tell him so. I (living in the country) have had to tell hedge trimmers to stop on several occasions and the vast majority of people accept the point and don't make an issue of it. Some of the biggest culprits are the Tidy Towns groups who cut hedges in June in time for the judging, and then they look for points for environmental efforts - such hipocrites!

In fairness I think people would act responsibly if they were aware. As "doctor evil" said above, there should be more emphasis on educating and informing people. I myself am well aware of birds nesting at this time of year but did not know it was actually illegal. Maybe an advert in one of the nature magazines would help, though I suppose the people who read these are aware already.

fatmammycat

We have starlings and black birds nesting in our back garden at the moment and very vocal they are too. They are constantly running a battle with the magpies and earlier they spent a good time dive bombing the crap out of one of my cats.
Their nest in in the very back of an old hedge by a wall so they're safe from all bigger predators, but it is a shame that the man yesterday did not even stop once and wonder why the birds were kicking up such a fuss-and they get very very noisy.