Sleeping Problems

The nest building process in our camera nest box seems to have gone very smoothly, with the nest being completed in such a small space of time. However, it is the behaviour of this blue tit at night which is perhaps the most interesting. 

For the past two nights, when she has come into the box to roost for the night, another blue tit has been heard calling outside, in pretty close proximity to the box. I assumed this was the male calling to the female; this pair has stayed very close to one another in the garden and its rare to see one of them at the feeders, but not the other. The male has, on a couple of occasions, fed the female inside the box, although I haven't managed to record this happening yet. The female occasionally replies to his calls with a tiny squeak as if to say "feed me". 

But the next part is really interesting. The bird calling from outside the box has, on the last two nights, flown onto the hole of the nest box just as the female has been settling down for the night. The reaction to this from the female was totally unexpected. She appears to start hissing at the intruder and spreads her wings out in a very defensive posture, similar to the way that blue tits protect the nest from predators. 

I don't absolutely know for sure that it was our male blue tit who is on the hole of the box, but the evidence seems to suggest that it is. He can be heard calling from outside the box, and the female clearly hears him, and replies to his calls on a couple of occasions. She doesn't seem too bothered about him being outside, until he flies onto the hole of the box. My theory is that the male blue tit (assuming that's who it is), is attempting to roost in the box with the female, but she isn't having any of it. I've never known the male and female to roost together in a nest box with a finished nest in it, so this wouldn't surprise me. Also, the reaction from the female, although quite animated, isn't as aggressive as one would imagine it would be if it were a) a predator on the hole of the box, b) another species, i.e. a great tit, or c) another blue tit individual to which she isn't connected. Perhaps this intruder was roosting in the nest box sometimes over of the winter, although I didn't see any signs that a bird had been roosting in the box when I cleaned last year's nest out a few weeks ago. 

To be honest, the more I watch it, the more I think it could possibly be another blue tit individual (not her partner), but I just think she would have behaved slightly differently if this was the case. Well I'll let you make your mind up yourself. The video below is a cut down video from a 20 minute recording I got last night at about 19:30 when the female enters the box to roost for the night. I have included a couple of clips where a train goes past the end of the garden (we have a railway line at the end of the garden in case you were unaware). She, like any other bird in our garden, is fully used to the trains passing by every 10 minutes or so, so usually doesn't react to it at all when she is in the nest box. She does seem pretty intrigued though, when a longer, noisier freight train goes past at about the 1 minute, 15 second mark. 

Also, she seems to have some serious problems with lice or fleas of some kind, because she's constantly preening herself to try and remove the creatures. On most occasions, you can even see the bugs moving around over her feathers. When you watch the video, I recommend turning the volume up so you can hear the male blue tit calling outside. Also, watch in 480p if you can, as its much better quality than 360p.

The second video below just shows a few clips recorded later on at night (about 22:30) showing the pretty serious parasite problem that she seems to have. She is never asleep for more than a few minutes before she is woken up by the lice/fleas moving through her feathers. It looks SERIOUSLY irritating, even just watching it. Although the parasites might not be harming her directly, she must not be getting enough of a sleep on her roost to maintain the energy levels needed during the breeding season. We'll see how it all unfolds, but I do worry about what will happen when the chicks hatch and the nest parasites are transferred to the chicks too.

Hopefully this issue with parasites doesn't affect the nesting attempt too much, but I fear that it will. Mrs blue tit is STILL adding material to the nest, albeit much less frequently now, which implies that she surely must be finished soon. Still worth remembering that it's early days yet, so it wouldn't be a concern if we didn't see the first egg for another few days yet. 

Thanks for reading.