Diary 2008 Page Two

2nd April

The nest is beginning to take shape although I suspect that this is the first one that this little bird has made.  She still appears to take out almost as much as she brings in.  Also, she is not very selective in the material that she is bringing in.
On one occasion, yesterday, she came in with a very long, coarse strand of straw.  She tried to arrange it in the nest but finally decided that she should remove it altogether.
As she left, tugging this behind her, she was not aware that it was sufficiently enmeshed in the rest of the nest to create a problem.  Below, there is a video of her trying to remove the offending piece.  You will notice that it appears to stop her in flight and she has to tug really hard to get it out.  In fact, she tugs so hard that almost the entire nest is lifted from the floor of the box.  The pictures show the sequence of events but you will need to watch the video carefully to see how she appears to be dragged back twice in mid-flight.  Finally, she must let go of the strand as the nest falls back to the floor.  It's shame that I didn't have a camera trained on the outside to see what actually happened.
 


Here she is about to drag the long piece out.


This shows the long piece in the 12 o'clock position being pulled tight


Here, the whole nest has been dragged off the floor towards the camera.
This what the nest looks like at 6.15 this evening.  The reason that she is looking upwards is because there was a male sparrow on the roof.  We have had to chase him off several times.  He may have ideas about using the box but I'm almost certain that he won't get in through the small entrance hole.  At times, she has struggled when she has had a beak full of nesting material.  I shall post some video of her taken from outside the box tomorrow which will show what a tricky job it is when you have a beak full of moss or grass!!

3rd April

This morning, Myra, our good friend and neighbour, brought a bag of fur from her Golden Retriever, Toby.  I have used this in the past with great success so I was looking forward to putting it in a fat-ball feeder and hoping the BT would be tempted.  While we were out shopping, I left the camera in the garden shed trained on the fur.  When we returned, it was plain that some had been pulled out so I couldn't wait to see the pictures.
It took just one hour for her to realise the potential of the fur as a nesting material so, over the next 20 minutes, before we got home, she made almost 20 visits to collect beaksful of fur for the nest.  Unfortunately, as I use the DV camera for capturing the pictures from the box, I was unable to record her taking the fur into the box.  I hope to do that tomorrow as I'm sure she will use some more.


Here is Toby


This was how the box looked at 2.30 before we went shopping.


This is the female Bluetit looking like Santa!!


This shows how much fur she bought in over the next 90 minutes.

6th April

The box is now packed full with every scrap of fur from Toby.  There is so much that it behaves like a trampoline when she bounces in and out.  She has been trying to knit it into the nest cup but it will clearly take some time.  The last couple of days have been very cold and windy.  Unfortunately, the wind is northerly and is hitting the box directly.  I am fairly sure that some hail stones managed to get inside this morning as the fur looked quite wet in a couple of places.
We haven't seen the sparrows trying to 'muscle' in lately so that's good news.
I keep all my bird food in a coal bunker in the back garden.  We don't use coal any more so the bins of seed and nuts are safely stored in there together with spare feeders; including last year's mealworm feeder.  I have noticed that the bunker has been smelling rather like a dirty animal cage for some time and assumed that the mouse that I pictured last year has a nest in there.  When I searched for the red, fat-ball feeder, last week, I saw the mealworm feeder was full of fluffy stuff.  It turned out to be the des-res of a gorgeous little field mouse.  I returned the feeder to its original position and will try to get some video and stills of her home tomorrow.  It was not the right weather, today.  We have had very strong winds and wintry showers.  Below are pictures of the nest box and the almost empty feeder.


Here is the feeder
And here is the box of fur!


Here she is asleep this evening
14th April

It has been a very busy week for us as well as our nesting birds.  Our granddaughter is with us for the holidays so time to update has been short.
There does not appear to be a great deal of change inside the box.  It still looks very white with the fur from Toby but she has also added several feathers.
This morning, I caught the male entering the box to take a look around but he was discovered by his mate.  She entered and appeared to order him out.  She checked for any mess (?) and then he returned to land at the nest hole.  Again, she appeared to 'scream' at him and he didn't risk entering.  She fussed about in the nest-cup before leaving.  She still seems to have to remove something when she leaves.  This time, instead of removing a strand of the coarse grass, she selected a fluffy-looking piece and performed a couple of bounces before leaving.  I am expecting an egg any day, now.


Here she is telling the male (bottom of the shot) to clear off! Click the picture for the video
 

Meanwhile, I managed to grab some video of three of our badgers.  I set up and old analogue camera in our dining room to see the action.  Two of them were feeding quite happily when they became aware of something, or someone, approaching.  They turned to see what was happening and one darted out of the shot.  Seconds later, it was back with the third one.  This one is the bully-boy of the group and does not believe in sharing.  He is clearly quite a clever badger as he went to the feeding bowls first.  Perhaps he has learned that this is where the more interesting food is put.  Once he decided that it would prefer the peanut butter cubes, he proceeded to hog the lot by lying on as much as he could and continually rotating his body to keep the others from having any.
15th April

It has become clear that the nest-cup is being constructed towards the rear of the nest box.  This has meant that much of it was not in view of the camera.  So, yesterday, I opened the removable plate on the front of the box and tweaked the camera back a little.  I had the plate back on in under a minute.  I had rather a long, nervous wait until she came back in the box, though!  Eventually, she  entered. That was quite a relief!

If you click on the photo on the right, it will open a video window where you can see her in the cup.  She leaves but takes some soft bedding with her.  It's very tempting to loop the bit where she bounces on the side of the nest like a trampolinist!

17th April

Still no egg!  I wonder if the very cold, frosty mornings are a factor?  She is still bringing fluffy stuff in and, after trying to tuck it in somewhere, taking it out again!  I caught her this morning with a typical example.  She brought it in, tried to use it, gave up and went to leave.  She must have decided to have another try because she jumped back down, tried again and then still took it out.
There is a video of this if you click on the picture.

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