Hampstead Heath nest box heroes

National Nest Box Week is marked every year in February (this year, it ran from 14-21 February) and it aims to encourage people to put up nest boxes for birds as the days start to lengthen and they start looking for safe nesting sites.

Installing sparrow terraces in 2025

Here at Heath Hands, we like to broaden the concept and include nest boxes for other wildlife species too! We therefore held a woodworking session during Nest Box Week, where our volunteers helped make and repair a variety of boxes. These included sparrow terraces for our local house sparrows, bat boxes for some of the 9 species of bat found on Hampstead Heath and hedgehog boxes for our charismatic prickly mammal!

As well as putting up new boxes, each year in Autumn or Winter we take the opportunity to clean any bird boxes ahead of the new season and to check our hog boxes across the Heath for any that are in need of repair and to check if any have been used. We did our hog box check in February this year - a big job as we have over 40 boxes currently out on the Heath and at Highgate Wood as part of our Hedgehog Friendly Heath project..

One of the team checking hedgehog boxes in the rain!

We were pleased this year that some boxes (see picture below) showed signs of having been used by their intended habitants as nesting material (leaves etc.) had been arranged inside the box.

More rainy checks

A box with signs of use

Our newly completed boxes will be going out to the Heath Extension early next month in collaboration with our volunteers and the City of London’s Ranger Team on site. These will provide resting places for hedgehogs to supplement natural refuges, such as leaf or log piles, particularly important in public spaces where there’s much disturbance and lots of dogs.

Hedgehog boxes ready to be installed

To find out more about our hedgehog projects and what you can do to help, head over to our project webpage.

Interested in finding out more about nature and wildlife on the Heath in Spring? Check out our upcoming Nature Ramble on Saturday 28th March, or pop into visit our Heath Info Hut on 21st March or the Dairy Nature Centre on 28th March - more information on our what’s on page.

And finally, you can support our projects supporting species such as hedgehogs and house sparrows by adopting a wildlife home.