There's still not much action in the tit boxes. Both get visited from time to time, Box2 seemingly more often than Box1.
It was Box1, however, that we thought was going to give me something to write about. Have a look at this!
Was this a great tit having a look around? As it didn't enter the box we couldn't see for sure but the top of its head looked distinctly black.
A quick look at the image from the outside camera quickly showed us that this was just another visit from a bluetit.
Still, it's very early days yet!
Now we have a couple of other cameras in the garden, we thought you might like to see what they are watching. One camera is taking pictures of the visitors to our bird table.
During the winter, we get inundated with blackbirds. We sometimes have as many as 10 in our small garden (roughly 50 feet square). We understand they are winter visitors from the continent. Certainly they disappear during the summer leaving us with one or two expanding families as the nesting season progresses.
This is one of the mature males. The males seem to tolerate other blackbirds as long as they don't get too close. They are much keener to chase off the immature blackbirds of which there are several.
Their favourite food is the fat mix. This is melted lard into which sunflower hearts, chopped peanuts, oats and a little mixed seed have been added.
When they eat this mix, which they do with gusto, they grab a chunk and toss is up so they can catch it with their beak wide open so that the food can be swallowed. While this is going on, you can see a robin in the background waiting patiently for his turn!
Another frequent visitor is a song thrush. This has started singing in the early morning - a lovely harbinger of spring!