Bluetit Diary    Mar 2008 (10)

 

 

Thursday 27th March, 2008

We saw an interesting episode in Box1 today.

We start with Gelda (or could it have been Phil - I really don't know!) going inside Box1.

Imagine you are a bluetit and some big brute of a great tit comes and sets up house in your nest site.  What can you do?  Great tits are significantly bigger and stronger than bluetits so open warfare is just not on.  Perhaps this bluetit thinks hassle and harassment might work?

Before Gelda is properly inside, a bluetit (surely a male one) appears out of nowhere and attacks Gelda's rear!

Judging by this sequence of pictures, he was pretty serious about it too!

By this time, Gelda has escaped to the inside of the box but the bluetit sensibly decides to stay outside.

He looks pretty fierce here - his head and neck feathers are standing up on end!

The bluetit seems to hovering outside the nest box.  He probably doesn't was to land on the hole for fear of being attacked, but wants to keep up the pressure on Gelda.

I'm not sure what is going on here!  Perhaps he has landed on the hole. 

This is Gelda's response!.  She has turned around and it looks as though she is making a great show of defending her nesting site.

The bluetit still seems to be pretending to be a Hawker Harrier in hover mode - just look at those wings and tail!  However this is all happening so quickly that it's difficult to tell exactly what is going on.  Only 2 seconds have passed since the first picture of this sequence!

Another shot of Gelda from the inside.

Hovering must be difficult.  Here the bluetit seems to be making his way up to the roof of the nest box.

Gelda seems to have calmed down a bit too.  She is still in defender mode but now from the floor of the nest box.

Bluey takes up a favourable vantage point from where he can wait and see what happens next.

Gelda is still displaying like mad!

"Is that the best you can do?" the bluetit seems to be saying!

"Where is that bluetit?  Has he gone?"  Gelda look questioningly towards the entrance.

The whole episode from the first photo until this one has taken only 6 seconds. 

Gelda leaves the box, presumably to see whether the bluetit was still around, about 30 seconds later.  She stays around the box, going in and out several times, for some while after this.