Camera Nestbox Diary 2013

It's been two years since we last had any activity in our camera nestbox and this year it seems we have been lucky again. Camera Nestbox Diary 2013 is go!

Last weekend whilst I was still home for my Easter break from uni, I happened to notice a Great Tit going into the nestbox with clumps of moss in its beak. This years spring has been pretty late, so seeing nest building start this late isn't a surprise at all. I had noticed Great Tits investigating the box prior to this, but this was the first time I had seen one bring in nesting material. 

The issue was that the camera wasn't in the box at the time- I had taken it out months ago due to the fact it had stopped working for some unknown reason. I hadn't been able to work out whether the issue was related to the camera itself, or the cable, so I decided to just bring it all inside to avoid further damage to the camera over the winter. I decided I would try my luck and connect up the camera again to see if it would work, and somehow it did- no idea why but I wasn't complaining. 

After connecting it all up, there wasn't too which activity for the rest of the weekend- I only saw the Great Tit enter the box twice more, and it was on the hole of the box a few times as well. It seemed as though the nest building process had slowed right down- although I'm aware that in many cases, nest building can include a couple of days here and there without much activity. So I wasn't too worried about the situation but I was hoping to see them a few more times over that weekend.

On the Sunday morning I went back to uni, meaning that if there was any more activity, I wouldn't be able to see it. The rest of the family had been occasionally watching the box early in the week but there was apparently limited activity. I popped home from uni this weekend as I went to the last match of the football season (I support Oldham as this is where my Dad is from), and made sure to check the nestbox camera as soon as I got home. I was surprised to find a fully completed nest. There had clearly been a fair amount of progress in the box as the week went on. 

At about 19:35, after watching the camera for about half an hour, the female Great Tit appeared at the box. She spent about 3 minutes pecking at the hole of the nestbox, which I found quite interesting, as this usually happens when the birds are checking the box out for the first time. She eventually came into the box, shuffled around for a bit, re-arranging the nest, and could be heard calling a few times as well. Then I noticed something that I really wasn't expecting. As she was moving material around, she revealed an egg in the cup of the nest. It had been covered up quite nicely by the nesting material prior to this hence why it couldn't be seen. These birds do seem remarkably good at hiding their eggs in the nest. 

After about 8 minutes, she finally started settling down for the night. This seemed quite early to me, as it was still easily dark at this time and lots of other birds were still active around the garden as well. The video I recorded is below. I decided to try and enhance the video in an editing program a little to make it look a little better. The colours aren't great on this camera, and the relatively low evening light didn't help either, but I was happy with what I recorded. The other issue with this camera is that its angle of view is quite narrow, meaning the nest takes up the entire screen and you can't see the walls of the box. This wasn't too bad when filming the Blue Tits nesting a couple of years ago, but the Great Tits, being larger birds take up a lot of the frame. I noticed that you can actually buy little wider angle lenses for the nest box camera, but I feel this may be a job for another year. Anyway, enough talking, here's the video I got:




So here we are, with another family to follow. Hopefully these Great Tits will have a better time of things than the Blue Tits of 2011, but we shall see. It's been interesting to note the difference in nesting times between these two families. Our Blue Tit female in 2011 finished building her nest and laid her first egg around the 20th of April. So this Great Tit female is over a week behind our previous Blue Tit family, but this was to be expected, as we've had such a late spring this year. 

So, tomorrow I go back to uni which really shall be difficult to do given all that is going on here. I have a couple of plans up my sleeve to try and still get videos uploaded whilst I'm away but I'm unsure of how exactly things will work out as of yet. Whatever happens with the recording side of things, I'm excited for what lies ahead for this Great Tit family. We'll just have to see how it goes. I'm guessing a second egg will have been laid tomorrow morning, and I'll probably post again before I head back to uni. Until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend and I'll be back soon! :D