Restricting the wildlife

Feel a bit guilty today as we've had a negative impact on wildlife habitat.

Firstly, we've just installed caps onto the three chimneys that we don't use. The caps are made from aluminium, so they're recyclable, and are clamped onto the existing chimney pots. They'll prevent the Jackdaws from nesting, hopefully! As it is the pair of Jackdaws that seem to have adopted the front bedroom chinmey as their likely nest site for this spring didn't look too impressed today when they found their entrance blocked off. The other benefit of the caps is that they will prevent rain ingress into the unused chimneys, and should help in solving the damp problem in the stacks. With the last two years being very wet, and with the chimneys not used, they have seen a lot of damp ingress which has affected the house.

The other habitat that has been destroyed is a huge wasps nest. Last summer it was obvious that a load of wasps were living in the porch roof, but they didn't affect us so we left them to it. This week Paul the brickie demolished the porch roof and exposed the huge, and thankfully dormant, nest. It was full of dead wasps so may have been unlikely to be reused, but not being an expert on wasp habitats I wouldn't like to say. All I hope is that they don't come back this summer looking for a home as they could be disappointed, and a little annoyed. And I'm no big fan of annoyed wasps!