Yesterday morning Blue Tits made a few short visits to the nest box. In the first section of the video you can see that as a second bird arrives the first one leaves. Several times a Blue Tit leaves with a thick piece of the grass stalks I put in after the Autumn clean out. This is similar behaviour to that seen last year when the bird removed all the wood shavings I had put in the box before starting to line the box with moss.
There seem to be several days between visits. Maybe, as they do, the birds are investigating more than one possible nesting site.
Ahhh that's brilliant John.. hope you get a pair to nest and raise chicks, i've just put a box up with a camera in it so fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteThis is very encouraging, John. None of our boxes have had any visitors as yet, but we keep hoping ...
ReplyDeleteHello Shaz. It's a good start anyway. I wish you luck with your camera box and hope you get some takers.
ReplyDeleteHello Twosie. They seem very unpredictable. The visits are very brief with gaps of days between. It's still early days yet so I hope you get some activity in the near future.
ReplyDeleteHi John, I wasn't able to find any way of playing the first video but the second is fine! I came over briefly, in a hurry, yesterday and as there were videos to watch I thought I would come back today when I have more time, as far as I can remember it didn't look like there would be a problem yesterday.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I enjoyed the second one and there is definitely some serious house hunting going on there! I expect they have a list of 'des reses' to check out, it's all about 'location location location' you know. Let's hope they put in a serious offer :)
Hello Jan. Sorry, confused you. The first is a still shot taken from the video. I put that in for those with slow connections who might have problems with downloading video files.
ReplyDeleteHi again John, LOL… yep the first image caught me out just like Jan. I went off to Flicker ;-)
ReplyDeleteI like to add still captures too as you know. I find they have to come first if my first para is short as my drop down menus disappear behind the video otherwise. A little glitch there.
Now glitches with your visitors though. Brilliant to see a pair visiting your nestbox and proper pre nesting activity too. Yes, as you say it is very possible they are doing the same with other nestboxes too.
No pair visits during the day here - while I’ve been watching anyway. Not concerned though yet as we are behind you with nesting.
I often capture still shots (female especially) of visitors (day and roosters) to work out if the same birds are visiting. Do you do this too?
Hello Shirl. I got the idea of adding a still clip from viewing your blog. The pair are early this year. I was near the beginning of March last year so it is early days yet. I have put the front on my Robin box which is in a tree to see if that night attract a Blue or Great Tit family. The Robins have never shown any interest in it.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought of using stills to compare birds - good idea. I have put an extra camera outside the box which is being visited so I hope to capture some tooing and froing.