I'm still here!

Hi everyone, just to let you know that I haven't given up on this blog. Its been months since I last posted and I left you half way through our next box diary. I do apologise about that, and I will finish off the diary when I can. It'll take me a while to get all the video together and everything, as its all on my other laptop, but you should be able to see that soon. I also hope to add a few posts to my blog earlier in the year, as a have a LOT of photos sitting on my laptop that I would like to share. Anyway, cheers for sticking with me, and I'll be back soon!

College lake in the sun

-- NOTE - This post was done in March 2012, but I have posted it so that it appears as having been published on 19th June 2011 -- 

College lake is one of my favourite reserves around my area to visit. Its not only a huge wetland habitat but contains a lot of scrub and woodland too, meaning a very large diversity of wildlife is attracted. Highlights there for me in the past have been sightings of a hobby, as well as a huge range of wildfowl. The lake itself is man made, and I think I'm correct in saying the site was originally a chalk quarry before it was flooded to form the lake which now makes up the majority of the reserve. The photo below shows the view across only a small part of the lake, with the sun shining on the water...

Due to the diversity habitats there, there's generally something to see all the way through the year. Whenever I go, I usually try and visit the feeding station they have there which is always very busy and has some interesting species. The first bird to show up though was one of the more common ones, a Robin. This one looked a bit scruffy but came up close for a nice photo...

Chaffinches were pretty much a permanent feature on these feeders, and it was rare not to see any there at any one time...

One of the birds I wasn't expecting to see at the feeding station was a yellowhammer. I've seen them plenty of times in the wild before, but never feeding with other birds at a feeding station. This one was happy to feed on the floor, picking up all the seed that had been dropped by the birds on the feeders above. The photo below isn't great and is more of a record shot but I'm happy that I got at least one shot of it before I left.

Larger scale feeding stations like this one also attract other ground feeding visitors though. Rats were pretty common there, which I can imagine is unpopular with some visitors to the reserve. I don't really have a strong opinion either way on them, although it did appear that numbers needed controlling a little here. The photo below came out quite nicely in the end.


Given the time of year, it was unsurprising to see flocks of blue and great tits with a number of fledglings. The majority of them were feeding themselves but there were still a few younger fledglings being fed by their parents. The suet balls were the food of choice, held in a sort of basket feeder.

After a few minutes of watching, I spotted a different bird moving around with the flock of blue and great tits- a marsh tit! I hadn't seen one before so seeing one up so close was quite exciting. Telling them apart from willow tits is very difficult, but I think I made the right decision here. I could be wrong though so please correct me if I am :) The cap of this bird was slightly glossy, which is one of the only differences between them and willow tits, so I think I'm right on this one- please correct me if you think I'm wrong. Being much less common than any other bird at the feeding station, and also in significant decline, the smart looking marsh tit grabbed my attention for a while, and was probably the best part of the trip in general.

So onto photographing it then... well lets say I probably could have done a better job! The first photo below was so nearly a brilliant photograph. The marsh tit was sat on the wire that can be seen in the photograph. I had set up my camera perfectly, zoomed in and focussed on the wire, but just as I pressed the shutter button, the bird took off. So the photo shows the bird just about to fly out of the shot. At the time I was really disappointed to have missed such a good opportunity. But after looking at it a few times, I actually quite liked the effect I had created. Although the bird came out quite blurry, I like the way its positioned in the photo, and also the nice blurred out background. Overall, the picture actually looks quite arty- completely accidental but it definitely turned out a bit better than I thought it had...

I did manage to get a couple more shots, but both are record shots really

So moving on from the feeding station, I then wandered around the reserve for a while. There's a path which you can follow which pretty much takes you round the whole lake, and through all the other habitats they have there. When I was there, I didn't really think to take any photos of the overall scene of the reserve. So the only pictures like that that I do have show only a small part of the reserve. The photo below shows a blurred out teasel plant in the foreground, with part of the lake and one of the newer hides in the background.

On the way round the reserve, a flower I hadn't seen before caught my eye on the edge of the footpath. I had no idea what it was until I spoke to someone walking past about it. He told me it was a Bee Orchid. I'm useless on flower ID but this one will definitely be remembered for next time- it has a very distinctive appearance. They are apparently relatively widespread around the UK if you know where to look. This BBC page explains some of the basic information about where to look for the various orchid species in the UK. And this site explains in more detail about Bee Orchids in particular, such as its distribution and the factors which are threatening it as a species.

And then I came across these daisy-like flowers (identification please). I used to know what they were but I've forgotten now :)

I also need some identification help on the bird in the photo below. Looks to me like it could be a juvenile pied flycatcher? I thought it could have been a juvenile whitethroat originally but it looks to be the wrong shape and with the wrong type of bill. I could be wrong though. The photo is pretty poor- was taken from a distance and cropped quite a lot. The bird was also sort of hidden in a bramble bush so it only appeared occasionally. See what you can make of the photo..

That's all for now everyone, keep checking back to the updates list as I still have a lot to add.   

All seven chicks hatched

So its been about two days since the first chick hatched in the blue tit nest in the camera nest box at the end of our garden. Chick number 6 hatched yesterday, as it was getting dark, and chick number 7 hatched this evening. Both parents are feeding the chicks very frequently and the chicks are already starting to grow.

I was a little bit worried about the seventh chick, as it hatched about two days after the first. But I was happy to see that the very first feed after the seventh chick hatched went straight to the new chick. Both parents are feeding roughly the same amount each.

The video below shows the scene just after the sixth chick hatched yesterday- all six chicks looking healthy in the box. The seventh egg was hidden under the pile of chicks, so it couldn't be seen :-)

The clip below shows both parents feeding the six chicks (the female comes in first, then the male comes in after). The female then stays in the box and tidies up the nest before settling down on the chicks.

The clip below shows the male bringing in a meal for the chicks. As you can see, the chicks were already strong enough to lift their necks up quickly to accept the food from the parents.

The video below shows both parents feeding the chicks again (male comes in first, then the female). The female settles down on the chicks after she has fed them. She still spends a fair amount of time sitting on the nest, with one egg unhatched at this stage.

Later on in the day, I was starting to wonder if the seventh egg would hatch, or whether it would remain unhatched, as is quite often the case with one egg in a nest. So I was quite surprised when I looked over to my laptop screen to see Mrs blue tit eating an egg shell- the seventh chick had just hatched, almost exactly two days after the first egg hatched. I didn't capture the exact moment, but the clip below shows the situation just after the chick had hatched...

Shortly after the last chick had hatched, chick number 7 got fed, which made me smile- I was quite worried that the seventh chick was noticeably smaller than the others, given that it hatched later. I didn't manage to record that feed, but the clip below shows the parents coming in a few times, feeding the seven chicks. In this clip, it was difficult to see which chick was actually being fed, as the parents were in the way, but as I am watching the TV now, I can see that the smallest chick is definitely getting its share of the food.

So things are looking good at this stage, I just hope it continues. I sometimes do forget how lucky we are to be watching a family of blue tits bring up their young. We've probably all seen blue tit families nesting on programs like Springwatch, but it really is something different when they are in your own garden. Hopefully this nesting story will be a success in the end :-)

Five chicks!

The first time I checked our camera nest box yesterday evening was about 21:00, and our female blue tit was sat in the nest cup settling down for the night. After about 10 minutes of watching, she shuffled around and revealed a tiny chick underneath her! So at least one of the eggs had hatched yesterday while I wasn't watching. Whether there was only one at this stage, I didn't know. As she was preparing to roost for the night, she didn't move off the nest cup, so it was difficult to see exactly what was going on underneath her, especially given that I was watching under the Infra Red light, rather than normal daylight.

By this morning, three chicks could be seen. I recorded the first few feeds to the three tiny chicks. The male is feeding the chicks very frequently, and most of the feeds seem to be caterpillars- which is good news. I know its only day two but Its promising to see that there doesn't seem to be a shortage of insect food to feed the chicks.

The video below shows one of the first feeds from the blue tit male, at around 06:30. My alarm went off at about 06:00 for school, and the male was feeding between then, and when this clip was recorded...

Most of the food that Mr blue tit brought in was passed to Mrs blue tit, who was sitting in the nest cup for much of the day. She then passed on the food to the chicks beneath her. At times, Mr blue tit seemed as if he wanted to feed the chicks directly, without feeding it to the female first.

The clip below just shows the male blue tit coming in to feed the chicks, at about 06:45. He was beginning to get used to feeding the chicks when the female was out finding food for herself. He also removes the faecal sack from one of the chicks as he leaves.

The fourth chick hatched just as I was leaving to go to school, so I didn't have time to record it. However, when I got home, it was clear that five chicks had hatched, leaving two unhatched. The female is mostly still sat on the nest cup, keeping the chicks warm and incubating the remaining two eggs. Now and then, she will pop out to find some food for herself and the chicks. Throughout the day, she has eaten away at the bits of empty egg shell which should provide her with the Calcium she used up in the egg-laying process.

The clip below shows Mr blue tit coming in to feed one of the five chicks that have now hatched.

Our female blue tit is currently roosting for the night on her five chicks- the other two should hatch later tonight or tomorrow. This is getting really exciting now... I will keep you posted on what happens next. Fingers crossed, our blue tit family will do well :-)

Starlings splashing about

-- NOTE - This post was done in March 2012, but I have posted it so it appears as having been published on the 3rd May 2011 --

Around the time where we had a pair of blue tits nesting in our camera nest box, the garden was also very busy elsewhere. The selection of photos below shows a starling paying a visit to our garden in early May. I actually used a few of the photos for in of my A-level photography projects last year.

Anyway, here they are. For some of these pictures, I have fiddled with them slightly in Photoshop Elements, just to enhance them a little...

The starling disappeared for a while and this magpie took the opportunity to take a dip...

But the starling was back about 10 minutes later, but wanted a bath this time

... And take off!

That's all for now, have a great day :)

Male blackbird about

-- NOTE - This post was done in March 2012, but I have posted it so that appears as having been published on the 2nd May 2011 --

With all the stuff going on in the camera nest box at this point of the year, I never got around to posting many of the pictures of stuff going on around our garden at the time . The photos below show a blackbird having a look around our lawn looking for insects- presumably looking after a nest of chicks at the time.

These are actually probably some of the best blackbird photos I have taken and they all came out rather well. As long as they come close enough, they aren't one of the more difficult birds to photograph, but getting a nice selection of photos is still nice. Keep checking back to the 2011 catch up post for more stuff that never got posted from last year.

Exmoor holiday

I thought that, now Mrs blue tit is sat on her seven eggs, I would post about our family holiday to Exmoor, North Devon. I have some bad news about the robin nest in our garden, but I'll save it for another time. So where exactly were we located? The dot on the map below shows the location of our cottages in relation to the rest of Exmoor national park, and the map in the bottom left corner of the image shows where Exmoor is in relation to the rest of the country, for those of you from other countries.

Before I go any further, I'd like to just mention that my Auntie Rose who was on holiday with us in Exmoor has just started a wildlife blog about their garden in north-west England. She's really, really enthusiastic about gardening (particularly growing veg on their family allotment) and wildlife in general. Its great that she's entered the blogging world, and I'm sure you'll enjoy her garden (and further afield) experiences into the future just as much as I will.

Exmoor is a fantastic place to see wildlife. One thing I noticed while we were there was the huge variety of habitats. Just some of these include: coniferous and broadleaf woodland, moorland, marshland, rivers and streams, farmland, thick hedgerows and coastal habitats. So we were able to see a wide range of birds throughout the week. In fact, a total of 43 species were seen, despite the fact we didn't visit a single nature reserve in the whole week. Each of those birds were seen out and about on various walks within about a 10 mile radius of the cottage.

Even the area within a mile of where the cottage was located was filled with plenty of birds to see. The common spring warblers could be heard singing along the hedgerows of the fields in healthy numbers. It was often quite difficult to spot them though, particularly chiffchaffs. The willow warblers seemed to be more common and were slightly easier to spot. The photos below show an individual that made its way to the outer areas of the hedgerows:

In the farmland surrounding the cottage, I heard the classic British sound of skylarks singing. It really is so hard to pick them out in the sky, so I was unable to get any photos. I saw one for about a minute before I lost it again. Amazingly, one landed on a fence post just a few metres from where I was standing but it flew high into the sky before I could get my camera out.

In the fields, wheatears could be seen, although they were camouflaged quite well and were also difficult to see. A couple of record shots can be seen below. It is only the second time I have seen a wheatear, so I did find it difficult to identify them at first.

We also visited the towns of Lynton and Lynmouth, and walked up the huge river valleys to the top where we had an excellent view of the surrounding environment. A photo of the river at the bottom of the valley can be seen below:

We made our way up the winding path to the top of the valley- which was very hard work! Along the way, we saw this peacock butterfly on the path...

As we walked up I became aware of a bird song which I hadn't come across before... a pied flycatcher. I hadn't seen one before so I was pretty happy to see one. I also know that their populations are in decline, so it was great to be able to see one before their populations get potentially dangerously low. Annoyingly, as I tried to take a photo, the camera automatically focussed on the tree trunk in the foreground rather than the branch with the flycatcher on. By the time I had switched to manual focus, it had flown off. See if you can spot the flycatcher in the photo below...

And when we got to the top of the valley, we were lucky enough to see these stunning views. Looking down on the valley and buildings, it looked almost like somewhere in Switzerland or somewhere similar. It really was an impressive view. We took the time to sit in the sun here and ate our lunch before moving on.

Whilst we were up there, we were lucky enough to see a family of peregrine falcons squabbling and circling above just before we ate our lunch. It was great to see such an impressive bird so close up. I have seen peregrines before, but never four of them at once, so close to us. The sheer speed of the falcons was incredible.

Another day, we wandered along a stretch of the East Lyn River which was owned by the National Trust- the actual site was called Watersmeet. The river here had pretty much the same habitat as the river photographed above. I spotted a pair of dippers as they collected water insects to take to a nest in a crack in the rock at the edge of the river. One of them came close enough to have its picture taken, clearly with various grubs in its bill. I always think of dippers as being water robins- they just seem similar in so many ways... apart from their habitats. Anyway, the photos I managed to get can be seen below:

We also visited the coast several times throughout the week. The photo below shows a linnet which we saw in some gorse as we walked along a coastal path:

I could post so much more about our sightings that week but I think I'll leave it for now- this posting is long enough as it is. I may add a list of the species I saw throughout the week another time. Anyway, enough rambling, I hope you all have a great bank holiday tomorrow, and I'll be back with more news from our blue tit nest. Bye for now though :-)

P.S. I have just added a post for the 25th April with a video of our male blue tit feeding the female on the nest- I didn't get around to uploading it on the day :-)

Male blue tit feeds female

I thought I would post a quick video showing how our blue tit pair are getting on in our nest box. The male has been feeding the female several times a day, sometimes in the nest box, and sometimes in the surrounding trees. I have to say, even though this our first proper nest box diary, it is looking quite promising so far.

In the video, it looks as though the male brings in what looks like a small caterpillar, or maybe a bit of fat from the fat block feeder in the garden.

Hopefully, the promising start to this nest box diary will continue into the next few weeks. I'll keep you posted :-)

I came home today to find...

... Seven eggs in the blue tit nest in our camera nest box! I left you last Friday with a picture of the finished nest. I then went on holiday to Devon, in the hope that when we got back, our blue tit female would have laid a few eggs. She didn't disappoint :-)

We've been away for a week, so she must've laid an egg a day, so far without skipping a day. Blue tits start to incubate their eggs when the clutch is almost complete apparently. Our female has started incubating her eggs (although not full time), so I'm guessing she has maybe one or two more still to go. I will try to get up early tomorrow morning to see if I can catch her laying her last (or second last) egg. It may be that she skips a day tomorrow morning, as blue tits often do.

The video below shows the seven eggs, and then the female coming in to incubate them. She left the nest every 15-20 minutes, so she isn't always on the eggs just yet. I'm guessing she will incubate them for longer periods tomorrow.

I have seen the male blue tit feed the female outside the nest box several times over the last couple of weeks. Today, as I was in the garden, I saw both the male and the female go in the box, but because I was outside at the time, I was unable to record what was going on inside the box. The video below however shows the female coming into the box, taking a while to settle down on the eggs and then calling for the male, who didn't arrive this time. Turn the volume up to hear the female calling if you can.

I'm so glad now that I decided to put the camera in the box a couple of weeks ago when I noticed the female coming in with nesting material. It really is exciting stuff. I will post about some of the sightings on our Devon holiday soon, maybe not tomorrow though. Anyway, have a great weekend :-)

The finished nest

Mrs blue tit finally seems to have finally stopped bringing nesting material into the box, and the nest now looks complete. I will just leave you with a screen shot of the nest as I leave to go on holiday to Devon for a week...

The image doesn't quite show the colours that I am currently viewing live on my laptop screen but I hope you can get the idea :-) She still hasn't laid her first egg so I guess that will come whilst we are away. I wonder how many eggs we will see when I get back...

Finishing touches

Our blue tit female really has worked hard to get her nest finished since Sunday when I put up the camera. I am a little behind on posting about the progress of the nest, simply because she is constantly adding to it. So I will put some of the videos showing her work on Monday and Tuesday, as well as showing you a picture of what the nest looks like as I watch the TV screen this morning.

The clip below shows what the nest looked like on Monday morning, after she had added lots of material the evening before, as it was going dark. It is clear that she had already started adding hair and wool to the nest for lining, although this proved to be a long process!

One thing I haven't seen yet is the male coming into the box to feed the female. I have seen him around the box, and feeding at the feeders with the female, but he seems a bit reluctant to actually visit the box and feed her. Hopefully, when the female is incubating eggs, he will start to do this. The video below shows the female fluttering her wings in the nest, presumably wanting food from the male at about 10:00am.

The clip below shows what the nest looked like later in the day on Monday, at about 17:30.

Throughout the day, and on Monday night, the female seemed to be scratching herself a lot, as if mites, fleas or ticks are present on her feathers or in the box generally. I'm guessing she was already carrying them on her feathers, because the nest box hasn't actually been used before, so there was no previous nest which could be carrying parasites. So on Monday night in particular, she seemed like she was really struggling to get to sleep, waking up every 30 secs- 1 minute to scratch and preen herself. It looked uncomfortable, even from just watching it! Maybe the chicks will suffer from the parasites when they hatch :-( The video below shows her at about 11:00 (about 3-4 hours after she went into the box to roost.

She did eventually settle down, but still woke up fairly frequently in discomfort. The picture below shows her with her head tucked under her wing for the night:

Yesterday, she continued to add hair and wool to the box, and the layer actually began to look a bit excessive, with almost no moss visible whatsoever!

I was amazed to see the female bring in a leaf of a green plant for the nest. I have no idea what plant it is, but apparently, blue tits are known for bringing in medicinal plants to disinfect their nests. Find out more on this BBC article. It is not very clear from the video below, but you should be able to make out the leaf which has been brought in.

The video below shows the blue tit visiting the box at around 14:30. Keep watching after it flies out the first time, as it visits again about 5 seconds later.

Finally, the images below show the blue tit visiting this morning, and also what the pretty much completed nest looks like:

Now that the nest building is pretty much complete, I am really looking forward to seeing the first egg in the nest box, which could be laid tomorrow morning. We are going on holiday on Friday, which is actually pretty good timing, because the female will be probably laying the last egg or two when we get back, and we won’t miss any of the feeding. I am starting to worry about where the male has gone now though. The female appears to be calling for him quite a lot without any response. Hopefully, he will get involved soon. Fingers crossed. Thanks for reading this far, it has been a bit of a mammoth posting. Have a great week :D