Jackdaws nesting?

Birds’ nests!  A phrase to delight the heart of everyone as we visualise sweet fluffy chicks and all the wonder of nature.  Unless you are a chimney sweep and then you think of jackdaws nesting – building nests in chimneys and all the problems that that entails.

At this time of year, a young bird’s fancy turns to thoughts of how to make a sweep’s life hell. The breeding season for Jackdaw’s is April – July. Jackdaws nesting are by far and away the worst.  They select straight, semi flexible twigs that are rigid enough to be springy. The first twig is grasped in the middle and the bird pushes it down the chimney until it sticks. Then they get another and repeat the trick till the chimney is packed with springy twigs, their ends well dug into the walls of the chimney.  When the brush goes up, the head of the brush bounces off the base of the completed nest without doing any real damage, so a special set of tools are needed as well as specific techniques, and a lot of time and effort.

Jackdaws on the pot

The jackdaws nest can include all sorts of odd things, small clumps of turf, sheep dung, and once even a Batman figurine, which does somewhat pluck at the old imagination.

Have you got jackdaws nesting in your chimney?

The giveaway to the householder of jackdaws nesting, if they don’t notice the endless stream of twiggy jackdaws furtively hanging around the chimney pot, will be the odd twig in the heart.  You do get bread crusts and bird turds sometimes, but these are indications that there is no nest in the chimney, as if there were, they could not fall through.

The ghastliest indication of a nest is when a clutch of chicks has died.  The maggots feast and pupate and then the emerging flies fall down into the living room turning it into the set of a horror film.

The other symptom is that if you use the chimney, it smokes back badly into the room and on testing, there is no draw at all.  The only solution is to call in a chimney sweep, better, a certified chimney sweep.

If you are concerned or unsure if you have a jackdaw nesting in your chimney, be sure to ask the sweep to check it out and don’t try and remove it yourself.

Do, be sure to have an appointment booked to have a bird-proof cowl fitted to the pot the minute the sweep has finished. I really do not exaggerate.  Leave it to the next day and the industrious little swine will have built another nest in that short time.  The best cowls for the purpose of preventing jackdaws nesting, have a mesh inside, are made of stainless steel and fit to the outside of the pot.  Mesh domes and mere inserts are just waiting to be knocked off by the next sweep’s brush. As for the hooded pot inserts, they are illegal, must not be used, can’t be swept, so they block with soot, and above all, jackdaws can still get in and build their nests.  Worst of all, you have to remove it before you can get the nest out safely.