On Wednesday 2nd January we saw how bluetits behave with their partners at this stage of the breeding season - coolly but perfectly politely! Here we have a sequence which shows what happens when birds that are not partners meet around a nest box. I have preceded each entry with the time so that you see how quickly some of the actions happened.
13:26:48
We start when a bluetit arrives at the entrance to the nest box. This time it is Box2.
A bluetit has been a fairly frequent visitor to this box and has spent quite a lot of time trying to get rid of the wood shavings that are in it. As nesting activity is an exclusively female activity for bluetits, I have always assumed that the bird doing this must be female. Whether this is that bird or not I cannot tell!
13:26:49
It enters the box straight away and can be seen here looking up at the nest box hole.
13:26:51
Another bird lands on the entrance to the box.
13:26:51
This causes the inside bird (IB) to start to display and presumably warn orally against trying to come into the box.
13:26:51
The outside bird (OB) reacts to this by briefly jumping up from the hole. Note that the last 3 images were recorded during the same second!
13:26:52
The OB lands on the hole again.
13:26:52
This prompts the IB to make a bigger display.
13:26:53
Again, this causes the OB to start back in reaction to the IB's aggressive behaviour, but it still doesn't leave the area of the nest box.
13:26:53
Another shot of the IB's aggressive display. It is presumably making lots of warning noises too.
13:26:53
It's a persistent bird isn't it? Still annoying the bird inside ...
13:26:53
... which continues to display vigorously.