What is this checker designed to do?
This tool draws attention to nesting-bird cautions before a hedge-work conversation. It is not a wildlife survey, a species identification service or permission for cutting. Choose the month, describe any activity you have noticed and identify the general setting. If something is unknown, keep that uncertainty in your answer rather than treating it as an absence of birds.
The GOV.UK wild-bird guidance describes protection for birds, eggs and nests in use or being built. The RSPB explains checks and nesting activity. Read those sources in their full context. This is general information, not legal advice. Every outcome retains the instruction: if in doubt, wait and take advice.
Why does a month answer not settle the question?
The RSPB notes that birds may nest outside the main period. The calendar selection therefore changes the emphasis of the caution, not the need to consider current activity. The checker never turns an autumn or winter month into a permission message.
Describe observations without entering the hedge or trying to obtain a better view of a possible nest. If you do not know what the activity means, seek advice rather than changing the answer to none. The result can remind you what needs discussing, but it cannot establish what is inside vegetation from a set of category choices.
Why does the hedge setting matter?
GOV.UK provides additional rules for relevant agricultural hedgerows. Their scope and exceptions need to be read directly rather than inferred from this checker’s short setting label. Shared boundaries and uncertain land arrangements also need clarification with the relevant person before work is instructed.
Keep a nesting question separate from a desired shape or finish. First decide what needs checking; then discuss the proposed task with the appropriate advice in place. For a different planning issue, use the scope quiz, the monthly source directory or the visit sequence. None of those pages overrides official protection or turns the answers here into an assessment of the hedge.
What should remain unresolved after using the checker?
Keep any uncertainty about observed activity in the note you take away. Do not convert a category selection into a statement that the hedge has been surveyed. Tell the person advising you which observation prompted the question and which part you cannot explain. Likewise, a general setting label cannot establish who may instruct work on a boundary. Record the missing point as a question. The useful result of this tool is an identified reason to seek advice, together with the official information to read, rather than an attempt to force a decision from incomplete observations.