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.

Hello spring, goodbye winter

Firstly, I must say that this post was started earlier on in the week as a draft, but I have been very busy over the last few days. This time, not with exams, as I don't have any for a while now, but with my 15th birthday last Monday, Mothers Day today, and a folk music festival outing all of yesterday, I have not really had the time to post recently. I must also apologise for my slow replies to comments. However, I have been accumulating photos for this post for a while now. Here goes...

I think we can officially say farewell to winter in our garden. It was been a week or 2 of change amongst our garden plants and animals, and most have already got their spring caps on. I do love the look of our spring garden, with the blossom on the trees, flowers coming out, and birds singing their spring song. The blossom on the trees has got to be my favourite part of the winter-spring transition, and our apricot tree is now completely white with the stuff.

Blossom covers the branches and stands out in the garden. Its sometimes difficult to spot the birds in the dense blossom, especially the Blue Tits. The fat feeder put in there in February is completely lost from view!


The blossom forms in clusters on the thin branches of the tree.


The colour of the blossom is quite amazing. The bees are definitely attracted to it and have been seen in large numbers on flowers like the one below.


Blossom is still emerging on the more shaded side of the tree, but will not take long to come out with the fantastic weather we have had over the last week or so.


Some of the leaves are starting to come out on our apricot tree too, and I am sure it won't be long until the tree turns from white to green. We have found that our pet rabbits love to eat these leaves, so once they have all grown fully, we will definitely pick a few for them. Once the tree is covered in trees, it really is hard to see the birds in the tree, especially the Greenfinches! The leaves make the tree look bigger and, come the summer, the apricot tree will be a fairly large tree, about 9-10 years after it was planted.

The slow worm is maybe not necessarily an animal associated with spring but I saw it today under our sand pit, so I thought I would take a picture and inculde it in this post. Whilst the slow worm isn't a "springy" animal, it reminded me that the lizards will start to become seen again in the early summer. They are such strange animals, as I noticed when I watched it. I think a look in the compost heap would reveal more slow worms, and maybe some other creatures too.

Recently, my dad bought 2 young apple trees which have already been planted in the garden in 2 different places. There is something very pleasing about planting a tree, especially if you get to see it grow, like I have done with the apricot tree. We do already have an apple tree at the end of our garden, and it has been very good for the birds recently, as we have a feeder hanging off one of its branches. I wonder how long it will take for the new trees to grow to the size of the older apple tree.

Maybe the fork in the apple tree branch seen below will be a possible nesting site in the future when the tree is fully grown?

Whilst I was outside in the sun this afternoon, I noticed that the Rhubarb plant in our garden is growing very fast. Last year, it grew so big that it covered the path to the right of it. Hopefully, some of it will get eaten before it happens again this year. The underside of the large leaves provide a good habitat for some of our garden insects. It may be a while until we see those yet though.

I can imagine that some of the northern England and Scottish gardens may be behind in the winter-spring change, but I am sure it won't be long. Unfortunately, our Blue Tit pair have chosen our conservatory nestbox instead of our camera nestbox this year :-( I had a quick peek in the nestbox today (without disturbing the birds) to see a nearly complete nest. Some of the flowers in my wildlife patch are now starting to emerge, and I may post on that soon. But for now, I wish you all a happy spring- at last!

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