Fred is still faithfully looking after Fantail. He appears to be feeding her more frequently now.
Fantail is frequently bringing in feathers and fine woolly material for her nest.
Here she has a white feather that looks like one Elizabeth put out earlier.
It's nice to know you are appreciated!
We have mentioned before that Fred often hovers on the entrance hole before going in.
He normally seems to do this when the nest is empty and we wonder whether he is trying to attract
Fantail to the nest. When Fantail is already in the nest and Fred comes to feed her he seems
to go straight in. This next shot was taken when a bird was clearly hovering around the
entrance but it eventually went away, no bird entering the nest. Could it have been another
bird looking to see if the nest was occupied?
Turning to Fluffy's nest, this is now looking more or less ready for the first egg!
Fluffy cuddled down in her nest.
In the second picture, Flash is trying it for size when Fluffy comes back!
Fluffy spent ages in the nest box today doing more or less nothing except wriggling around
to make herself more comfortable.
For the first time this year, both birds roosted in their nest cups overnight. (Last
time Fluffy spent the night in the attic.) We suddenly noticed after dinner, it was about
9.00pm, that we had left the light on in Fluffy's box - and that she was curled up in a ball in
the nest cup! We quickly switched the light off and wondered if Fantail was in her nest.
So we took a quick peek by switching on her light for a second or so - and she was there.
People often worry that the light will upset the birds. It is our experience that if
the light is on all the time when they are first exploring the nest box, the birds accept it
as a fact of life and ignore it. Certainly, the chicks accept it as part of the big wide
world when they hatch and seem totally unaffected by it. After all, there is a big bright
light in the sky outside and nobody seems to find that odd!
Anybody giving odds on the chances of an egg tomorrow?
