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The last couple of weeks of my university term have been very hectic to say the least, hence the lack of activity on this blog in this time. I've had 4 or 5 deadlines to meet, as well as a couple of other bits and pieces to do. I have to say that I'm more than relieved to finally be at home for the Easter break. I've been back for a couple of days now and I'm settled back into the ways of living at home where I'll be for the next month.

The weather since I've been back has been bitterly cold- particularly today. The garden has been covered with a layer of snow which hasn't disappeared in many places just because it hasn't been warm enough to thaw it all. Ever since I filled the feeders up yesterday, the garden bird activity has been pretty frantic. Since I've been back, a female Bullfinch and a Siskin have both been seen in the garden. The latter is a bird we've only seen once in the garden previously, and that was about 3 or 4 years ago, so seeing that was quite a surprise, especially as I was in the garden doing a few jobs when it visited. A Coal Tit pair have also been visiting the garden quite a bit over the last couple of days which has been good to see. 

Below are some of the dreadful photos I managed in the short time I spent outside with my camera before my hands were nearly frozen and I decided to head back inside again.

Obviously at uni, as I'm in halls, there's no garden to keep track of, so It's been good to catch up with the garden back home again. Hopefully should be getting back into the swing of things as far as blogging is concerned, and will get round to reading other blogs over the next day or two. Until next time though, wrap up warm and lets hope Spring arrives at all this year. 

And The Cold Spell Continues...

Well actually, now I've finally got round to posting this, temperatures have now started to climb and I think we can expect warmer conditions next week. But when I went out for a walk around campus on Saturday it was still only about 4 degrees, and even with plenty of layers on it was pretty chilly. 

Just a standard patch walk really, but saw an interesting range of species along the way including Kestrel, Kingfisher, a Grey Heron flying overhead (which isn't as common as you might think on the lake), a few Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Redwings and Mistle Thrushes, lots of Goldcrests and Nuthatches, Jays and Siskins. The photos below show the view across the lake: 

There wasn't anything particularly out of the ordinary on the lake other than a Kingfisher flying over the water surface, and a couple of Tufted Ducks, which aren't always around on campus. As usual, the lake was pretty much dominated by Black-headed Gulls as seen in the photo below. As you can see, some of the gulls, like the top one in the photo below are starting to show their spring plumage with that dark chocolate brown head beginning to appear. 

Moorhens like the one in the photo below were seen plodding around the edge of the lake too: 

And these Mallards looking who were looking rather smart...

As I was heading over to the woodland, I saw this Jay hopping around on the ground underneath the trees. Please excuse the terrible photo- they're incredibly hard to approach without them flying off. 

The first bird I saw when I walked into the woodland area was a Blue Tit, which is photographed below. This one was perched on a branch just a few metres away and kindly allowed me to take a few pictures:

Quite a few Goldcrests were seen in the woodland although again, I was unable to get anything other than an average record shot. The thing is, when you see them they often stick around for ages and are very happy to forage around in the vegetation in close proximity to you, but they just don't stay still for a second and are constantly shuffling along a branch, hanging upside down or hovering around. The best I managed is the photo below. 

I was constantly looking around, hoping that the next tiny bird I saw would be the Firecrest, but I'm really starting to think it may have moved on now. Haven't seen it in a while and no one seems to be mentioning it anymore. Still, I feel pretty lucky to have seen it, and maybe it'll turn up again next winter, we shall see.  

And one more final record shot for the day, the Nuthatch in the photo below. Despite the fact there are lots of them here on campus, they're really very shy and getting close to them is pretty difficult, similarly to the Jays. Anyway, enough excuses, the photo I managed is below: 

That just about rounds up my walk yesterday, hopefully by next week the temperatures will have risen enough for it to start feeling like spring :D  

Walking in Somerset & Fyne Court

So yesterday, given the continuing sunny weather, and the warmer conditions than we are getting today, we decided to walk in the countryside to and from a National Trust property called Fyne Court, near to our holiday house here in Somerset. The conditions were pretty much perfect for walking, with temperatures around 13/14 degrees and low wind.

We started off the walk at the top of Lydeard Hill, where we parked the car. The view from this spot was incredible...



We then set off on the way to Fyne Court. The habitats around here are so varied that all sorts of wildlife can be seen. One of the first birds I saw on this walk though was a rather more common one, a blue tit hiding at the back of a tree...

Great tits have been one of the more common birds I have seen on the holiday so far. The "teacher, teacher" call has been heard frequently all week.

The walk involved walking on bridleways, footpaths, through fields and short parts on minor roads. The rapeseed fields are now a brilliant yellow colour and was quite a sight in the sun...

Eventually, after what was a fairly long walk, we got to Fyne Court. After a bacon sandwich and a much needed drink, we headed around the grounds, which is more a nature reserve/nature trail than anything else. Find out more about Fyne Court here. Once again, the sound of great tits could be heard when we got there. I stopped for a few moments to take this video of a male great tit performing the classic "teacher, teacher" call which I have become so used to in the holiday so far. The video is really shaky and I wish I had brought my tripod now, but you can really hear the sound of the call very clearly. 

Blackcaps have a lovely call, not dissimilar to the robin, which could be heard at several points throughout the trail... 

After finishing the trail, we stopped for a much needed cream tea. But even as we were sat outside, the wildlife action didn't stop there. A rather tame pair of chaffinches came in to eat the crumbs around the tables, and allowed me to take some pictures that I was pretty happy with. I was surprised that they came in so close to allow me to take the pictures. They are one of the more tame birds, but its not that common that you get as good a view as this... 

The female chaffinch showed a fungal growth on its left foot, something which is so common in chaffinches these days. It didn't really appear to be affecting her too much though, and it was only hopping around on the ground that looked uncomfortable. 

And then the male chaffinch returned for one more photo...

And the female retreated to a nearby branch for a while... 

... Only to fly down from her perch for one more meal... 

And that was that, all in all a very good day out. I still have a couple more posts for this holiday to come yet, but one of them is likely to be quite long, so it could be a little while before that one is posted. Anyway, hopefully the weather warms up a bit over the next couple of days ready for Easter Sunday :D

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 :-)

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 :-)

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

Nesting activity!

Back in late February, I posted about a pair of robins that were building a nest just on the other side of our garden fence. Strangely, despite the fact the nest was probably nearly complete, the robins disappeared, and the nest had been abandoned. We had no idea why it had been left unfinished, but our best guess is that it had been disturbed, even though we are unaware of anything which would have caused this.

So I thought they would have started to build a nest somewhere else- which they did. What I wasn't quite expecting was for them to build a nest in the robin box at the end of our garden. They managed to build an entire nest in the box without us noticing. It was only when the we actually saw the female sat on the nest incubating eggs about a week ago that we realised they were even there! It really is amazing how secretive they are. Every half an hour of so, we see her pop out of the box- probably to feed, before she sits on her eggs again. So far, things appear to be going well as far as the robins are concerned.

I thought it was a little bit late for any nesting activity in our other nest boxes this year, given that no interest has really been shown in any of them. However, whilst I was watching the robin box at the end of the garden on Sunday, I noticed a blue tit go into the camera nest box on the apple tree at the end of the garden. It went in and out several times, clearly with nesting material in its beak. The camera nest box is literally 2-3 metres away from the robin box, so I was amazed to see both of them being occupied.

However, if you read my last posting, you may remember me saying,

"Finally, I then moved the camera that was in the nest box at the end of the garden into the new nest box on our conservatory wall. I did this for two reasons:

The first reason is quite difficult to explain, but I'll give it a go! Basically, our camera nest box cable is split into two sections - the 10 metre cable which came with the camera nest box when we got it back in 2008, and a 20 metre extension cable which I bought in order to place the camera nest box at the end of the garden last year. The 20 metre cable has recently been chewed by something (again) - probably by a squirrel, and to avoid having to fix it again, it was much easier to disconnect the extension cable, and put the camera in the box on the conservatory wall using the 10 metre cable that came with the box in the first place. Secondly, and much more simply, the birds didn't seem particularly interested in using the box at the end of the garden anyway, so it made sense to just move the camera into the new box."

So the blue tits had decided to build a nest in the nest box which we had just removed the camera from. This was unbelievably frustrating, given that no interest had been shown in the nest box at the end of the garden until this point. So I wasn't sure what to do at this stage. I really wanted to introduce the camera to the box, but equally I didn't want to disturb the nest.

The first problem with moving the camera was that the 20m extension cable had to be repaired so that the camera would reach to the end of the garden. I'm very thankful that Dad was able to do this for me (for the 4th time)! I then took the connected the extension cable to the camera and got it ready to introduce to the occupied nest box. Then was the hard part; I wanted to wait for the female robin to have a break from incubating her eggs and fly out of the robin box just 3 metres or so from the blue tit box, to avoid disturbance to her nest- if that makes sense. Obviously, I also had to make sure the blue tits weren't in their nest box either before I introduced the camera. So when the time was right, I put a ladder up against the tree and put the camera in the blue tit box- which took just a couple of minutes.

Luckily, I had managed to line up the camera perfectly with the bottom of the box first time which meant I didn't need to go back and adjust the camera to disturb the birds further. I was so happy to see both the blue tits and robins return to their nests within 15 minutes of me introducing the camera. At this stage, the nest looked about 75% complete. The first video I recorded can be seen below. It was recorded at about 15:20 on Sunday:

The next clip shows her shuffling in the nest cup which appears to be in the back left corner of the box at about 19:00. She was visiting about every 10-15 minutes throughout the day, but I wanted to show the progress she had made in the 4 or 5 hours since the last video. Not a huge amount had changed in that time, but then she began to work much harder between 19:00 and 20:00, coming into the box about 15 times throughout the hour.

By 19:30, the infra-red function on the camera had kicked in, and the videos from then on were in black and white, despite the fact that the sun only set at about 20:00. The video below shows the female shuffling in the nest in black and white, with a small amount of orangey evening sunlight filtering into the small frosted resin windows on the sides of the box.

Eventually, at about 20:00, she decided to settle down for the night. This seemed to take forever though, as she shuffled around in the nest cup looking as though she was trying to get comfortable. After about 15 minutes, she relaxed a little and tucked her head underneath her wing. Even after this though, she seemed a bit restless, waking up to move some material around the nest cup or scratching herself.

That's all for now. I will post tomorrow about what progress has been made over the last couple of days in the nest box. Have a great week :D

Start of the nesting season?

Generally its been a pretty mild start to 2011, so early nest box investigation by blue tits and great tits is something which we expected around now. We have had the odd blue tit investigating our nest boxes, however what has really caught my eye is some early nesting action going on just on the other side of our garden fence...

In the ivy which covers both sides of our garden fence, a robin pair appear to be building a nest. For the last few days we have seen nesting material in the form of leaves being brought into the ivy very frequently- at times we have seen a leaf being taken in every 10 seconds or so. A couple of years ago, a robin pair nested very close by to this nest in a small shrub and successfully managed to raise some chicks (not sure how many, I just remember the juveniles flitting around the nest shortly after fledging). I don't know if the pair I am seeing at the moment is the same pair which nested a couple of years ago, but they certainly seem as though they have had experience building nests in the past.

I do get worried when a pair of birds start building a nest so early in the nesting season- we are very likely to get some more cold weather before we can safely say that spring has begun, which could easily cause our robin chicks to starve. Hopefully it will be a while before eggs are laid and chicks hatch in the nest. Below is a video of the robin taking nesting material (mostly leaves from the ground) into the nest.

The video is about 6 minutes long, with about 15-30 seconds between each visit to the nest. I am experimenting with editing programs to get the best quality video possible. So the quality of the videos I upload may improve in the future.

The robin nest is fairly close to the blue tit nest box on our conservatory, and the two birds can be seen happily living closely together- the robin has been perfectly happy building the nest whilst the blue tit has been investigating the conservatory box. This can be seen in the video below. The video is focused on the blue tit box but you can make out the robin flying in and out of its nest in the background.

We have rearranged our nest boxes slightly since last year. This was done after the video above was recorded. The hand built nest box which was on the back of our shed was taken down because I couldn't get into the nest box to clear the nest which had been built by great tits a couple of years ago. I moved the box which was on the conservatory to behind the shed to replace the one that was taken down. I took the 25mm metal hole protector off, because I wanted the box to be more suited to great tits (as it was before). The photo below shows the nest box which used to be on the conservatory wall, now on the back of the shed:

Because there was then no nest box on the conservatory, we bought a camera-ready Handykam box (which is identical to the camera nest box we have at the end of the garden on our apple tree). So we put up the new box on the conservatory. So if your still following - we still have nest boxes in all the places which had them before, its just we have moved the boxes around a bit!

Finally, I then moved the camera that was in the nest box at the end of the garden into the new nest box on our conservatory wall. I did this for two reasons:

The first reason is quite difficult to explain, but I'll give it a go! Basically, our camera nest box cable is split into two sections - the 10 metre cable which came with the camera nest box when we got it back in 2008, and a 20 metre extension cable which I bought in order to place the camera nest box at the end of the garden last year. The 20 metre cable has recently been chewed by something (again) - probably by a squirrel, and to avoid having to fix it again, it was much easier to disconnect the extension cable, and put the camera in the box on the conservatory wall using the 10 metre cable that came with the box in the first place. Secondly, and much more simply, the birds didn't seem particularly interested in using the box at the end of the garden anyway, so it made sense to just move the camera into the new box. Complicated, eh?!

A picture of the new conservatory nest box can be seen below. The stick on the left of the box was put there by me for the blue tits to use as a perch. I deliberately made sure not to put the twig directly in front of the hole to make sure it doesn't obstruct the birds flight into the box.

So since the new box has been up on the conservatory wall, we have had blue tits fly onto the hole of the nest box but not fly in- until this morning that is! Yep, the blue tit pair which have been checking out the hole of the box for a few days now finally had the courage to go inside. Even then, the male (i'm guessing) which went in first looked a bit shy and twitchy. After a while though it settled in and stayed looking in and around the box for a good 4 minutes before the female came in, performed a "nesting shuffle" and flew off again.

The male blue tit appeared to be very interested in the frosted plastic windows on both sides of the box, as well as the camera itself which it clung to several times whilst investigating. The female didn't stay for long, but hopefully both birds will be back in the near future. A couple of minutes after recording the video, we had to go into the garden in order to put our pet rabbits into their carriers to take them to the vets to have their vaccinations done. Unfortunately, as I went outside, a blue tit flew out of the box- although I was completely unaware that it had gone back in again.

Anyway, I am sure they will be back soon. The video which I recorded can be seen below. I experimented increasing the sharpness of the video on the program I use to capture my nest box videos. Whilst the videos are higher in detail, they look slightly less natural in my opinion, so I will reduce the sharpness a little for future videos.

That's all for now, I will hopefully get round to posting more this week sometime. I have found the video of the Jay in our garden back in November which I may show in a post soon. Other than that, have a great week. :-)