A mystery nest in the herb bed...

[British Red]

So, my lady wife was weeding the herb bed today. She called me over to our vigorously growing comfrey

Comfrey by British Red, on Flickr

Now bear in mind the comfrey only grew from March - before that it had died off to the ground.

In the back is a nest

Nest 1 by British Red, on Flickr

Nest 2 by British Red, on Flickr

With a hand and knife for scale - its a good 4-6" across

Nest Scale by British Red, on Flickr


There is no obvious opening

....ideas?

 

[Andy T]

Long tailed tit would be my guess or wren ?

 

[British Red]

Very few ltt around here and I think they nest earlier? Plenty of wrens.

 

[Andy T]

Long tailed tits will have two clutches if conditions allow.

 

[Joonsy]

too low to the ground for long tailed tits or wrens, i don't of any birds that build a domed nest that close to the ground.

i suggest a ''Harvest Mouse nest''

PS -- edited just to add, harvest mouse nesting behaviour link
http://www.theharvestmouse.co.uk/harvest-mouse_nesting.html

 

[Robbi]

my initial thought was Dormouse maybe ?

 

[Robson Valley]

I get vole or mouse nests in flower beds and tall grasses. Would be about 6" across, 3-4" thick and right on the ground.
BUT, they all seem to be some sort of winter housing under the several feet and months of snow cover.
Never seen a green one.

 

[Robbi]

http://locksparkfarm.files.wordpres...-nest-rushy-field-11-nov-07-reduced.jpg?w=490

http://www.launcestonparishwildlife.org.uk/files/105/No47_May08a.jpg



dormouse nests

 

[British Red]

I wondered about mouse but the nests I normally find are more grassy?

 

[Robson Valley]

Here at 53N, we call "mice" the little rodents with naked tails. Somewhat larger are the "voles", just mice (to me) but bigger with hairy tails.
They all seem to like to shred whatever insulating materials they can find for housing/nests.

Outdoors, BR, I agree 100%. Indoors/sheltered, whatever the little buggers can shred.
I was taught to keep wooden matches in a sealed jar for that very reason.

MY gun club. Very early spring (lots of snow drifts), got some 4' drifts cleared so that we could shoot some clays. Doubles.
We left all the Pacific Automatic Traps loaded (450+ clays) when winter set in. The turrets must be 16+ stacks of more than 40+ clays each.
Anyway, 5 of us had a nice shoot and decided to reload the beast. Got into the trap house with shredded cardboard everywhere!
We had left 6 cases of cases in there for the next reload.

Turned out that a Vole had decided to live in the middle of the machine clay turret for the winter. Bigger nest than a football/soccer ball.
The poor sod went around and around and around in the clay turret for dozens of rpm with the throwing arm banging away 1/4" beneath it for the better part of 20 minutes.
Sat there, looking at us like what the Hello did you guys do to me?
Had that been a female with babies, we might have left well enough alone and used another machine in an another trap house.
Chased it out with 90psi air.

 

[Damascus]

Is the nest flat? It may well be a pheasant, we have had one sitting till recently and considering its size the nest is quite small

 

[British Red]

Its about a 6" sphere. We do know pheasant nests here


Pheasants egg by British Red, on Flickr