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

Birds bathing

It seems silly that at this time of year in the sub-zero temperatures, that any bird would want to wash itself in cold water. Well, Sunday morning while I was filming the birds, a Magpie decided to have a splash in our bird bath. I had only just tipped the ice out of the bird bath and filled it again with water. It was very funny to watch, and quite sweet too, even though it was a Magpie.

I had my tripod placed in the usual position of our office building. Again, please forgive me for the bad control of the tripod in the video below. I will learn! The other birds didn't dare to take a dip at the weekend, but were busy on the feeders most of the day. The main features were Blue Tits (it appears that 2 have already paired up for spring as they flew around together), House Sparrows (which have been very common recently), Great Tits, Dunnocks (as always), Robins, Blackbirds, Chaffinches, Goldfinches, Magpies and of course Woodpigeons and Collared Doves too. I have read Shirl's posting for today, and it looks like her garden was very busy with birds coming and going. Notably the Blackcap, which I haven't seen so far this year. Hopefully the extra suet I put out on Sunday should attract them again this winter.




I haven't seen any investigation of our terrace nestbox for a 2 or 3 weeks now, so I hope they return when I relace it with my camera nestbox (hopefully this weekend). Its interesting to hear that birds in different parts of the country nest earlier than others. I am guessing that because the south is warmer, birds such as the Blue Tit are more likely to investigate nest sites earlier than in previous years.

The other video I wanted to show you timed out when it was uploading, but I will try again tomorrow.

Both videos were taken by me in our garden on Sunday 4th January 2009

Christmas and New Year holiday

If you were wondering why I haven't posted in a while, it is because we have been away. But today I have a monster post to make up for it. Firstly to Christmas, and before I forget, Happy Christmas everyone (if a little late). We visited my Grandpa's house in Oldham and had a great time there. Hope all you readers had a fantastic time wherever you were this Christmas. I had the best nature Christmas present I could have hoped for! Read on and find out what it was...

Have you guessed yet... A camera nestbox for the garden. I really was chuffed to bits to unwrap this. I was really surprised with the amount of accessories it came with too. This will be a first for me, as I have never used anything like it before. I will definitely need help putting it up, although I have already tried the camera out inside. I think I also know where the best place to put it up would be. Last year we had Blue Tits nesting inside one of the sections of a House Sparrow Terrace nestbox on the back of the house, so I think if I replaced that nestbox for a year with the new one, there is a decent chance it will get used. Not only this, but the terrace box needs cleaning out, so it needs taking down anyway.

I am very much looking forward to any nestbox activity in the near future. We currently have Blue Tits investigating the House Sparrow terrace, so fingers crossed, we are lucky enough to have residents in the box this year.

While I was in Oldham, I took the time to get outside and take some snaps and videos of my Grandpa's garden (which is remarkably neat). His neighbours feed the birds too, so I got the chance to video some common garden birds too. Below is a video showing the garden and its plants, using my new camera tripod, which coped well with the strong wind. Before now I had been balancing my camera precariously in order to get a video which isn't wobbling around all over the place. Hmmm.... I think I need a bit more practice using the tripod as you will find out from the video.




In his garden, he also has a small pond, with some plants surrounding it. It really looks nice at the end of the garden and helps the local birds too. Again the video below was taken using my tripod which has really been useful so far. Various reed-type plants overhang the pond and make it all look natural. Note the use of the made-up word, "reed-type". This is because I have no idea what the plants actually are!

On this blog, I don't often show scenic photos, but this one and some of the others later on in this post I couldn't resist adding them to this post. The first one below was taken at my Grandpa's house again and is of the sunset. Sometimes it is just luck when a photo opportunity comes up like this one. I just happened to be in the garden at the right time to see it. My camera probably isn't the right thing for taking pictures such as this, but I was happy with the effect anyway.

After a very enjoyable family Christmas, we went up to a town called Barnard Castle in County Durham for a New Year's holiday with family friends and relatives. As most of our holidays involve walks, so did this one, which provided me with lots of bird-watching opportunities as well as photo ones too. And I saw a total of 29 species over the course of Christmas and New Year (most at New Year). Please don't try to read them all at once! They were:

Canada Goose, Pheasant, Grey Heron, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Lapwing, Common Gull, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Kingfisher (seen by my cousin when he was fishing), Pied Wagtail, Wren, Dunnock, Robin, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Long-tailed tit, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Magpie, Jackdaw, Rook, Carrion Crow, House Sparrow, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Bullfinch.

We visited a number of places while we were there and High Force Waterfall was one of them. It was spectacular. Not only the actual waterfall, but the icicles around the waterfall were stunning. With the waterfall I tried slowing down the shutter speed of my camera to see what would happen to the water effect, and it worked really well, so I have included that below, underneath the one taken at ordinary camera setting speed. We also saw another, smaller waterfall afterwards, which seemed tiny compared with High Force.

I found that some of the photos I took on holiday looked better in black and white. The sheep looked particularly good. But thats probably because they are black and white anyway! Below are a couple which a played around with on a program called Photoshop (which you have probably all heard of anyway. I particularly liked the bottom one.

The highlight of the holiday has to be a visit to a reserviour high in the hills. It had snowed and it was absoloutely freezing. The effect was quite stunning. The air was perfectly still there too. The water was rippling very gently, although some parts of the reserviour had frozen over. It was the perfect opportunity for photography too. As I said earlier, my camera isn't perfect for the job, but I did my best. I couldn't believe it when I saw the no swimming sign next to the frozen over reserviour in the middle of nowhere, and just had to take a picture of it.

All photos taken by me on holiday in Oldham and County Durham