It is beginning to look like the start of a nest now.
The female, I assume, is still using the box as a roost every night.
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Great Tit Nest Box - Update
Not a lot of activity today, not until well into the afternoon when the female was spotted bringing some more nesting material. The video has been slowed down to half speed. In the second part you can see she sometimes has a struggle to get the moss and her body through the hole at the same time.
It is beginning to look like the start of a nest now.
The female, I assume, is still using the box as a roost every night.
It is beginning to look like the start of a nest now.
The female, I assume, is still using the box as a roost every night.
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I can't get the video John but can see the start of a nest. It's lookingto be a great summer Wrenlets and Titlets are not far away. got the video now it's wonderful. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteIt's so interesting to see all the activity we would usually miss. Great stuff John.
ReplyDeleteThat line is certainly a handy staging point for taking the nest materials into the box. Hard to believe you slowed it to half speed, they do move quickly!
ReplyDeleteAmazing to see how it's coming along :)
ReplyDeleteThank you Adrian. Activity seems to have slowed down, maybe as the temperatures have dropped.
ReplyDeleteIt is fascinating Keith. I spend too much time watching the monitor.
ReplyDeleteThey are fast Wilma once they are near the nest box. They take quite a while approaching it to make sure the coast is clear and the male is always nearby keeping an eye out for danger.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing, Glo, to see how much time and effort goes in to building the nest. She spends ages adjusting things with each new batch of moss.
ReplyDeleteGreat to see the nest starting to take shape John. We had nesting great tits a few years back that raised a few young. Maybe this is just me, but they always seem more convincing when bringing up their young than blue tits.
ReplyDeleteOur blue tit nest looks as though it is pretty much done now, although our female blue tit seems to be constantly adding hair and wool to the nest. Hopefully the first egg will come soon :)
Good to see they are still busily putting it all together John, it looks like they find that line very useful too.
ReplyDeleteIt is only 8c here today after recent temperatures of around 22c, hope that won't slow the nesting down!
Hi John, we are delighted to see the nesting activities - it is really wonderful to watch. We had great hopes for one of our bird boxes at the front of the house (of course, the one without the camera!). A pair of blue tits had been coming to it and had even started to bring some nesting material. But they have stopped coming so it looks like they have found somewhere else this year.
ReplyDeleteWe had a great laugh looking back at the captures from a previous post of your 2 hedgies (the male one coming up asking the female all sorts of questions).It was really lovely and so funny to watch. Looks like your hedgie numbers could well start to increase this year ...
John, do you ever notice white dog hairs lining the bird nests in your garden? We used to notice black dog hairs in ours, and one day caught some tits pecking up the hairs from the cracks in our patio!!
ReplyDeleteHello Joe. Things seem to have come to a full stop here. I hope it's just a result of the colder weather and not that they have decided to nest elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to the developments in your Blue Tit box.
Hello Jan. That line holds up one of my aerial posts and the birds find it very useful as a staging post to the nest box. Nothing extra added for the past two days. Let's hope that is just the colder weather slowing things down.
ReplyDeleteHello Twosie. That happened here last year. The Blue Tits started a nest in the box with the camera and then changed their minds.
ReplyDeleteNo more hedgehog meetings seen so I assume she is probably pregnant now.
Hello Matron. Never noticed any white dog hairs. My previous pooch had what you might call a double coat - long rough hairs on the outer and what was almost like wool on the inner coat. I used to put all the copious combings in an old nut feeder and they would be taken by the Sparrows and such like in no time at all.
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