Timber Dormouse Nesting Box

I will admit that this review is based on merely getting these out of the box, but I do have misgivings already…my intended use is for regular Dormouse monitoring visits and not just providing Dormice with a nesting opportunity that will not be looked at so often.

For a start, who screws boxes to trees and bushes? I have just had to remove 40 unnecessary brackets (two per box, which could have made the boxes cheaper). These were held in by very short screws which would not have gripped for long as the wooden softens with age….If you want to “bag up” a box because it has Dormice that need weighing etc, you don’t want to be unscrewing the box and that is if the trunk being used would take a screw in the first place. Admittedly, this is only an issue for surveying - if you just want to provide artificial nesting habitat, that is less of a problem.

The lid fixing is, in theory, an ingenious design that does away with wire, and looks very squirrel-proof, but at the moment these rotating catches are so stiff I am having to use pliers to turn them. The slot in the edge of the roof might also be a rainwater vulnerability, wetting the hole where the latches are screwed in. This might accelerate wood rot and once the latch screw holes are soft, what next?

The lid is a “lift off” type, rather than a “slide across” type, thanks to two vertical slats on the underside of the lid and also the latch design. Again, this is less than ideal for surveying, since I feel frisky animals could escape as you struggle to get the lid unwedged. These slats are so firm that at present some lids are difficult to remove. What will they be like once old and damp? You could probably get away with removing these slats altogether, because the latches would stop the lid from sliding off forwards. Again, not a problem if you do not want to regularly removed the lid….but most of us surveyors do!

I may have to do a bit of adapting…..this is a pity because the boxes themselves look very solidly constructed.