Tuesday 22 April 2014

Dunnocks, Great Tits and Hedgehogs

Three videos today:

I though I had spotted the occasional bird inside the Hedgehog House and suspected it may have been a Dunnock as I have often noticed them investigate underneath my shed. I set the recorder to watch inside the house during daylight and there was the proof:



A Dunnock helping itself to the left over crushed peanuts put in the Hedgehog House for any visiting Hedgehog.


The female Great Tit continues to spend long periods incubating her eggs with the male bringing occasional tasty morsels:




Yesterday evening I was taken by surprise when I noticed two Hedgehogs in the Hedgehog House:



One was only interested in eating. I'm not sure whether the other was feeling amorous or just wanted to get out.

8 comments:

  1. I enjoyed these. Many thanks.

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  2. Great footage John. I regularly see the Dunnock going in my Hedgehog feeding station during the day (although mine has an open entrance) and Blackbirds & Woodpigeons are the most regular visitors. At this moment a mouse is in there although it has been seen at night too causing a cat to nearly knock my camera looking for it - going to change the entrance to narrow it now.

    Always love to see the takeaway deliveries in the nestbox. Quite excited here as (later timing than you being further north) we have our 1st Great tit nestbuild going very well. It looks like like she plans to finish it with moss coming up so high in the box - way higher than I ever remember the Blue tits doing. Fingers crossed we will see eggs here although just as I am typing this a Blue tit pair are still hanging around outside and one has just been inside followed by Mrs GT with hair for the soft layer of her build. Mrs GT didn't seem agitated so she couldn't have seen the BT's this time.

    Loved the footage in your hedgehog house with two hogs. Nice to see the outside feeding too. We have had one regular hog for a few weeks and (as suspected) a new visitor was spotted last night after I cleared an area at one corner of my garden giving hogs a route in :-) Last night's new hog had a lot of ticks unfortunately.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shirley: A while ago I added an extra bit of wood inside and across the top of the Hedgehog House entrance to stop cats stealing the food.

      https://flic.kr/p/e6Z1Qm

      Sounds good for the GT. A year or so ago I had a Blue Tit in the nest box when the GT arrived. One heck of a short battle as the GT drove the BT out. My GT still keeps adding to the nest, maybe the colder weather.

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  3. you've got a busy place! the hedgehog inn, especially!

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    Replies
    1. It does get very busy from time to time TWG.

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  4. great videos! The hedgehog house is a tight squeeze for 2.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Wilma. There is a bit more room in the Hedgehog House under the camera where it can't see but two fully grown hogs do take up most of the space.

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Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Any comment, or correction to any information or identification I get wrong, is most welcome. John

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