Looking for insects

I am pleased to say that the Great Tit which we saw visit our nest box last week, has returned today. Our camera nest box, which has now been up for a couple of weeks, has certainly attracted lots of attention. Below is the video of this morning's capture. The Great Tit takes some time to come into the box, as it taps away at the hole for quite a while at the start.

Hopefully, you were able to view the video fine. I was really happy with the sound quality of the video, especially when the Great Tit is tapping away at the hole of the box. Again, the video is in colour, although it may look black and white. I have now changed the settings of the camera, so that the video quality should now be clearer.

It looks to be the same Great Tit which we saw visit the box before, although I have heard a second Great Tit calling just outside the nest box. In fact, we already appear to have a Great Tit pair visiting the garden, and the one which is visiting the box, looks to be a female, due to its thinner black stripe on its front. Its amazing to think that these birds are already paired up, ready for the spring ahead.

This Great Tit may have been looking for somewhere to nest next spring, but I reckon that, this time, the bird was looking for insects in the box. Notice the way it pecks around at the drainage holes at the bottom of the box, where insects might be. Hopefully, we will see some more visitor to the box soon.

Elsewhere in the garden, I have seen our Goldcrest again. It was flitting around in our conifer tree again, and presumably, it was looking for insects too. Its visits are quite regular now, and I'm hoping that it will give me the opportunity to take its photograph. They are so very tiny, so its difficult to even follow the bird, let alone take a photo of it.

That's all for today's post, although, should we get any more nest box visitors today, I will upload the videos to this posting later on. Have a great weekend :)

Miserable

The title of this post may be depressing, but so has the weather we have had today. Since I left the house for school this morning, it has rained non-stop. It really was horrible. But it was nice to come home today to find a parcel for me.

Before I blab on about what the parcel was, you ought to know this first: Last weekend, we took down our camera nestbox from the wall of our house. I have been planning on moving the box to the end of the garden for some time now and, for several reasons. Firstly, we have plans to build a small kitchen extension on the house next year, and, with our nestbox on the wall of the house, I thought that this could well ruin the chances of our box being used for nesting. The box also needed to have a quick clean-out to remove all wood shavings.

After the photo below was taken, I added a metal protective plate to the hole of the nestbox to prevent it from being damaged by predators.

So, we moved the box to the end of the garden in a pretty well-hidden place in the hope that we might get any roosters for the winter. Trouble is, that the camera cable wasn't long enough to go from the house to the box. This is where the parcel comes in. Phew, glad I got that explaining out of the way. The parcel contained a cable extension. I went outside in the rain after school with the cable extension to connect it all up. It really was wet work.

By the time I was finished, the weather had got worse and it was getting darker, so I was unable to take a photo of the new location of the box. I think I will post again tomorrow with a photo inside and outside the box. Finishing off on a happier note, the forecast for tomorrow is brilliant. Wahay ;)

Its the wrong nestbox

It looks like the choosing of a nest site by our Blue Tit pair is over. And, yep, you guessed it, they haven't chosen our camera nestbox this year. Over the last couple of weeks, the Blue Tits have more frequently visited our "conservatory nestbox" and even showed interest in a newly erected nestbox behind our shed. Its amazing, the effort and time the birds put into choosing a suitable safe nest site for the year ahead. The video below shows what looks like it will be the last visit by both Blue Tit parents this year captured by me.

The video below was captured in late February. I have only seen single Blue Tits visit the box over the last few weeks, and just recently, I haven't seen either of them enter the box.



If you visit my camera nestbox blog, you may also know that our Blue Tit pair even started to build a nest in the box. Click here to see the posting about that. The pair visited the nestbox daily and looked like they would definitely nest there. I am not sure what changed their mind, but I do have some ideas. I think that the size of the nestbox hole will have made an impact. The size of the hole is 32mm (I think), and this might have put them off. The nestbox is also not sited anywhere near cover and is in obvious view.

The possibility that there were 2 pairs visiting (one pair in the camera nestbox, and one in the conservatory nestbox) did cross my mind. I don't think this can be true though as I haven't seen more than 2 Blue Tits in the garden at any one time since the end of January. Also, the ID of the pair which visited the camera nestbox, seems to be the same as the pair that is visiting the conservatory nestbox. Confusing stuff!

Over the last few days, nothing has entered our camera nestbox at all and plenty of nesting material is being carried into our conservatory nestbox. A quick look inside the Conservatory nestbox without disturbing the birds showed a nearly complete nest. The poor female has been working very hard, and I have seen her collect nesting material around the garden. She is very cautious when collecting material on the ground and is scared by the smallest of movements.

There are some positives about the nest site which has been chosen in the end. For starters the conservatory nestbox is fairly near cover, and hopefully it is quite safe from predation by cats, starlings, magpies, etc. Also, the nestbox can be seen very well from the office building, so I may be able to get some good video capture for you to see in the future. I just hope the parents will be able to find enough insects for the chicks in a month or so.

I think I will finish on some of our other garden birds. The Dunnock in the photos below is starting to become quite tame.


Our other garden birds are feeding frantically at the moment too, especially the House Sparrows and Chaffinches. I may post on these birds soon. But for now, good luck to all breeding birds in the UK this spring.

Make your mind up!

Today, is mostly a day of relaxation for me, as I took some more GCSE exams on Friday, the long revision sessions are over now until my next maths GCSE exam in June. The birds were full of spring today. Almost every species I saw in the garden this morning was with a mate already. Currently our focus, however is on our Blue Tit pair which has been visiting our camera nestbox recently. They are still visiting every day, but I don't they have finished choosing a nest site yet- despite the fact that there is moss in our camera nestbox already.

Over the last few days, we have noticed that the Blue Tits have been showing much interest in our other nestbox, on the wall by our conservatory. 2 Blue Tits have been seen going in and out of the nestbox. The worst part is still to come, however. I opened the box this morning to see if there were any feathers, etc, only to find nesting material at the bottom of this box too! And it certainly looks like they have been doing it for the past week, because there is now about the same amount of nesting material that is in our camera nestbox.

This morning, I went outside into our office building, where I have a fantastic view of both nestboxes. I set up my camera on my tripod, and waited for the Blue Tits to arrive. It didn't take them too long to come, but I was very surprised with what I saw. The pair arrived, and were perched on a shrub near our fence. I saw one of the Blue Tits go into our conservatory nestbox, whilst the other one flew into our camera nestbox at the same time!

So, it appears we have a bit of a problem. I wondered why there were 2 nestboxes with moss at the bottom, and my first thought was: is the Blue Tit female building 2 nests. I have heard this happen before, but I must admit that it is a strange thing to do. They must use twice the amount of energy building 2 nests instead of just the one. This thought made me think... are there 2 pairs of Blue Tits visiting our garden at the moment- one pair for each nestbox. I would like to think this is the explanation but I haven't seen more than 2 Blue Tits in the garden at one time since January.

So, what is the situation inside the camera nestbox. Well, it appears that nesting material is still being taken into the box, but maybe less frequently than the other nestbox. There is moss mostly on the right hand side of the box, and quite a lot of it, by the look of it. Because our camera nestbox faces north, the light levels are often a bit dim, so its hard to tell exactly how much material is actually in the box.

Today, I looked out for the usual birds on the feeder but, surprisingly, this morning, for the first time, a pair of Siskins visited the garden. I noticed that they were much more timid than the usual Greenfinches. They are such colourful birds, and they brighten up the feeders. I hope they visit again in the near future. Also, a Robin was seen sat on the mealworms bowl, which is now nearly empty. I have some more mealworms ready to put out now. Hopefully the Blue Tits will notice them too.

I wonder if any of our other bird species decide to nest in our garden this year. We still have a Robin nestbox up in the tree at the end of our garden, but I don't think I have seen any visitors! oh, yes and good luck to everybody else with a nestbox hoping for it to be used this year!

All photos and videos taken in my garden on 7th March 09

Moss already...surely not

Er, yes we do have a small covering of moss at the bottom of our nestbox. The first thing I thought was that it couldn't possibly be moss. We do live in the south but its not even March yet. From the nestbox diaries I have seen, they don't start bringing in nesting material until mid-march to early April. This certainly has worried me, and I am not sure whether the parents will have a chance of bringing up a successful brood. Surely there won't be enough insects to feed the chicks. We'll have to see what happens next.

For some reason, taking still images with the nestbox camera doesn't work particularly well, and the quality of the image below isn't that great. You should still be able to make out the darker plant material on top of the wood shavings. This really surprised me!

Both parents visit the box

First visit from both Blue Tit parents has already taken place. The male visits first, followed by the female. The female performs the nesting shuffle several times, which is a good sign. Hopefully they will use this box in the spring.

Blue Tit removes wood shavings

Something that I have seen on other camera nestbox blogs is where the Blue Tits start frantically removing wood shavings from the bottom of the box, which have been placed there to insulate the box. Its great fun to watch, but I can't help thinking that the wood shavings would help keep the nest warmer?!

I have started to see this kind of behaviour from the Blue Tits visiting our nestbox too. I suppose it could be a sign that they are trying to get the nestbox ready to build a nest. Hopefully, this is the case!



We'll just have to see what happens.

Blue Tit visits again

A Blue Tit entered the camera nestbox again at the start of the month and the visits have been very regular. This is a great sign for the spring ahead, and hopefully the visits will continue.



Video taken in my camera nestbox on 1-02-09

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2009

This year the RSPB hosted its 30th Big Garden Birdwatch. This is the first year I have taken part and I must admit that it was great fun. I bet many other wildlife bloggers also took part in the event. I thought I would do this posting to show you what I saw this year. I will first say that I didn't really see anything particularly unusual, but it is the taking part that counts, in my opinion. I haven't got any photos of the event but I have got quite an exciting video clip for you to watch- well, I think so anyway!

I watched the birds for an hour between roughly 09:10- 10:10 yesterday morning. I am yet to enter my results on the RSPB website, but I have my list here. I watched from my bedroom window (where I have the best view of the whole garden). The reason why I couldn't take photos from there is because the feeders are too far from the house for my camera to take close-up photos. Anyway, before I talk for too long, here is my list:

Blackbird x 1
Blue Tit x 3
Chaffinch x 2
Collared Dove x 1
Dunnock x 1
Goldfinch x 5
Greenfinch x 2
House Sparrow x 2
Magpie x 1
Robin x 2
Song Thrush x 1
Starling x 2
Woodpigeon x 4

This gives me a total of 13 species. I don't think this is bad, however, I was a little disappointed not to see a Great Tit or a Coal Tit. They obviously had other things on their minds. I suspect this isn't going to be a particularly great score compared to everyone else, but I guess it depends greatly on the time in which you do it. So, having seen 13 species, I would have been disappointed with my results. However, while I was counting the birds, I, for the first time, captured Blue Tits entering my camera nestbox. Admittedly, they didn't stay long actually inside the box, but I was still chuffed to bits to see it.



Above, I have included one of the two captured videos. There seems to be 2 males fighting over 1 female in our garden at the moment, which is very interesting, and it appears that it is one of the males that has visited the box. I have to say that this constant interest in the nestbox bodes well for the nesting season ahead. Of course it is only January and its early days yet, but as long as these birds keep visiting, I think its likely that they will nest there in spring. Fingers crossed for that!

I have left the video as I captured it for now, so you will find that nothing happens after the Blue Tit has left for around 20-30 seconds. Please stop the video after the Blue Tit leaves the box. I was very surprised with the fantastic quality of the video. Seeing the greyish wood shavings made me think that the colour wouldn't be very good, but I was definitely in for a surprise. I look forward to the nesting season ahead in our nestbox and everybody else who owns a nestbox!

Just before I go, I must congratulate and thank Shirl for her effort organising the Plant Challenge and also to the people who helped spread the word. It was a great event, and I was amazed with the interest it caused. Also, I look forward to seeing other people's results for the Big Garden Birdwatch.

Video taken in my camera nestbox on 24th January 2009

Will I ever catch them?

Hmm... I am beginning to think if I will ever be lucky enough to capture these birds on camera as they investigate the box. I think we have had birds investigating this box twice now, and I have missed both of them. At least I know that, come spring, I will have a better chance of actually seeing the birds nesting. Again, you will really have too look carefully at the images below for this one! The wood shavings at the bottom of the nestbox seem to have given them away again. The wood shavings have definitely at least been disrupted.

Actually, before I go any further into these recent sightings, as you will already know that I created this new blog. I have done this, mainly to show my camera nestbox sightings as a separate diary. It will also be easier for you, as readers to skip between my recent camera nestbox postings. If we don't get any nesting Blue Tits this year, I will still keep the blog for next year. I will also say that there will be more and more postings here going into the spring supposing we do get nesting birds.

Again, I am not sure if anything stayed for long as the wood shavings have not moved too much. Apparently, a familiar sight with camera nestboxes is that, any residents will often frantically remove wood shavings from the box (presumably because it is not approved nesting material. So if I happen to notice that the shavings are decreasing, I think I will know why. I also don't know what species entered the box. If it wasn't a Blue Tit, I think it is more likely that it would have been a House Sparrow. A Great Tit (I would have thought) would be unlikely to nest so close to the house - but I could be wrong.

Before:
After:

This time, I have not used videos to show the nestbox. I found that, last time, the videos were not going to be clear enough for you to see the difference. Notice in the picture that, i particular there is one large wood shaving that has moved from the bottom of the picture to the left hand side of the picture. By the way, I have considered the possibility that the wind could be disrupting the wood shavings however it was not remotely windy today. The bottom image was taken during the day and the top one was during the night, but you will still notice that the bottom picture is very different from the top one.

Have you noticed any birds visiting you nestboxes at this time of year. Now that I have a camera nestbox I have noticed just how frequent these visits are for us even before the birds start nesting. I wonder if I will get any roosting Blue Tits in the box while the weather is still cold. I know that Shirl at Shirls gardenwatch has seen this in her camera nestbox. Looks like this could be an interesting year, Shirl. My mealworms have arrived and I have already put them out in the garden - the adult birds like them too, especially the Robins.

All images taken in my camera nestbox on 20th Jan and 21st Jan

First images

Presumably you can guess what this posting is going to be about based on the title. My new camera nestbox has now been put up on our house, and I we have seen the first video pictures of it. We put it up last weekend, so that it was there for birds to inspect the box well before the breeding season. My dad managed to get a long ladder from our neighbour in order to put the nestbox on the wall of the house. It was a difficult job, as it was a windy day and he had to drill a hole through the house wall to get the cable through. But hopefully it will pay off...

I'm not sure I can believe this, but I think we have already had a visitor to our camera nestbox. I didn't see the bird (presumably a Blue Tit) as I was at school, but I have noticed a difference inside the nestbox. Before we put it up, we put wood shavings at the bottom of the box so as to keep any roosting birds warm. The wood shavings appear to have been moved and shuffled around. Please take a look at the video below and see what you think! The video you see won't be as good quality as the one I will be able to view, however, you should still be able to see it clearly enough. Also, you will notice that the video is in black and white. This is because it was dark when recording both clips, and the camera was using the infra-red lights to light up the box.


Now that I have watched the version of the video that you will see, I can see that the image is very unclear. It is not the case for me, and believe me, there is definitely a difference in the wood shavings at the bottom of the nestbox. So, assuming it was a Blue Tit, it looks like a nestbox inspection has taken place, to check out nest sites for the breeding season. Admittedly, there is little disruption of the nestbox floor, so it looks like the bird was probably not there for long. I also wonder if a male and a female visited... I hope so!

I wonder if other people are currently getting birds checking out their nestboxes. It certainly does seem early in the year for birds to be investigating nest sites. Its only mid-January and nest-building is unlikely to begin until at least mid-March. Or, was the bird that visited looking for a roosting site? If so, the "Blue Tit" decided not to use it tonight, because the box is currently empty.

Tomorrow, before I go to school, I think I will leave the computer to record the nest box. This way, I will be able to check later on if anything has visited. From past experience, I have found that the birds will tend to visit the nestbox quite frequently before nest building if that nest site is popular with the parent birds. So hopefully, they should visit again soon-fingers and toes crossed.

Finally I must buy some mealworms soon. They become life-savers in the breeding season, but will still be popular at this time of year. I find, that the live mealworms (if a little wriggly and awkward) seem to be better for the birds to feed on. I tend to buy the live mealworms over the Internet as they are difficult to find elsewhere (scary to think that boxes of worms are in the post!) I'd be interested to know where you get your bird food from. I recommend http://www.birdfood.co.uk/. Most of their products have been recommended by the BTO (as they used to be in partnership) and they have a wide range of products. The website is definitely worth a look.

Video taken in my camera nestbox on 13th January 2009

First images

Presumably you can guess what this posting is going to be about based on the title. My new camera nestbox has now been put up on our house, and I we have seen the first video pictures of it. We put it up last weekend, so that it was there for birds to inspect the box well before the breeding season. My dad managed to get a long ladder from our neighbour in order to put the nestbox on the wall of the house. It was a difficult job, as it was a windy day and he had to drill a hole through the house wall to get the cable through. But hopefully it will pay off...

I'm not sure I can believe this, but I think we have already had a visitor to our camera nestbox. I didn't see the bird (presumably a Blue Tit) as I was at school, but I have noticed a difference inside the nestbox. Before we put it up, we put wood shavings at the bottom of the box so as to keep any roosting birds warm. The wood shavings appear to have been moved and shuffled around. Please take a look at the video below and see what you think! The video you see won't be as good quality as the one I will be able to view, however, you should still be able to see it clearly enough. Also, you will notice that the video is in black and white. This is because it was dark when recording both clips, and the camera was using the infra-red lights to light up the box.



Now that I have watched the version of the video that you will see, I can see that the image is very unclear. It is not the case for me, and believe me, there is definitely a difference in the wood shavings at the bottom of the nestbox. So, assuming it was a Blue Tit, it looks like a nestbox inspection has taken place, to check out nest sites for the breeding season. Admittedly, there is little disruption of the nestbox floor, so it looks like the bird was probably not there for long. I also wonder if a male and a female visited... I hope so!

I wonder if other people are currently getting birds checking out their nestboxes. It certainly does seem early in the year for birds to be investigating nest sites. Its only mid-January and nest-building is unlikely to begin until at least mid-March. Or, was the bird that visited looking for a roosting site? If so, the "Blue Tit" decided not to use it tonight, because the box is currently empty.

Tomorrow, before I go to school, I think I will leave the computer to record the nest box. This way, I will be able to check later on if anything has visited. From past experience, I have found that the birds will tend to visit the nestbox quite frequently before nest building if that nest site is popular with the parent birds. So hopefully, they should visit again soon-fingers and toes crossed.

Finally I must buy some mealworms soon. They become life-savers in the breeding season, but will still be popular at this time of year. I find, that the live mealworms (if a little wriggly and awkward) seem to be better for the birds to feed on. I tend to buy the live mealworms over the Internet as they are difficult to find elsewhere (scary to think that boxes of worms are in the post!) I'd be interested to know where you get your bird food from. I recommend www.birdfood.co.uk. Most of their products have been recommended by the BTO (as they used to be in partnership) and they have a wide range of products. The website is definitely worth a look.

Video taken in my camera nestbox on 13th January 2009