Bluetit Diary    Feb 2008 (6)

 

 

Sunday 17th February, 2008

This isn't the first year that a great tit has balked at entering one of our boxes through a 28mm hole.  The first time we had great tits in 2005 although they were clearly desperate, they refused to go inside the box until I had increased the hole to 32mm.  You can pick up the story here.

I don't know how many times this great tit has come back to look at Box1.  Should we make the hole bigger again now?  It is 28mm, a size that the RSPB and the BTO both recommend for nesting great tits.  Our birds appear to know better!

Or perhaps we just feed them too well!

 

The second visit of the day.  Well the second after we had switched the cameras on!

He flies away again, frustrated by the small hole.

Another view of a bluetit coming into land on Box3!  Not only are its wings furled but you can't see its feet either!

It lands cleanly as usual.

It doesn't go inside though.  In fact, none of this box's visitors have entered the box since I moved it!

A picture from our bird table.  It's not only the tit family that can show a pretty feather!

This time it's a bluetit looking at Box1.   Remember that if I make the hole big enough for a great tit, the bluetits will have little chance of winning the box for their nest site.  Great tits are sufficiently bigger to make their victory in a head to head battle pretty certain.

Still, if we hadn't had a great tit brood last year, we wouldn't have had any chicks fledge!

Again, he didn't enter the box.

Another great tit visit.

It's a full minute later before he flies off.

Finally, a picture from out Fat Feeder.  For the last few days we have regularly had a group of long tailed tits eating from it.  At one time we had as many as 6 of these birds.

Now, how could we get one of these birds to nest in a camera equipped site here?