Bluetit Diary    Mar 2004 (4)

 

 

Friday 12th March, 2004

The weather has been cold and grey for most of this week, not the sort of weather to turn a bluetit's thoughts to nesting.  Life for both our pairs seems pretty mundane with little excitement for us, their human watchers, to report.

Fantail and Neptune in Box1 appear to be spending their time productively.  Every now and again Fantail decides to get a bit of practice at collecting nesting material.  Then she decides that it's too early and takes it out again.  Neptune is often around, but generally leaves Fantail to get on with it - after all, nest building is girls' stuff!

Fantail brought some hay in this morning, but there's no sign of it now.  Here she is in the afternoon having another go.

After she had dumped her hay unceremoniously on the floor, she does a nesting wriggle just for the hell of it.  This manoeuvre would normally help to create the nest cup for her eggs.  Of course, at the moment, there isn't enough material for it to be worth doing, but it's good practice.

But what's this?  Not a one winged wriggle is it - that's supposed to be Fluffy's speciality?!  She does have the edge of the box in the way so we shall have to forgive her.

Here she's back an hour later with more hay.

And again, this time with an even bigger bunch.  It doesn't look like it but she has been leaving the hay in the nest so far!

She hurls it unceremoniously to the floor.  She does this with a whirling action, turning sharply clockwise and releasing the hay as she does so.  This spreads the hay quite well over the floor.

A couple of minutes later, she's back with even more.  Perhaps she's found a good source and wants to make the most of it?

That's more like it - a normal two winged wriggle.

She departs shortly after.

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