Bluetit Diary    Apr 2011 (3)

 

 

Sunday 10th April, 2011

Today it's Joy's turn.

Again, it's difficult to be definite about when nest building started.

On Saturday, 26th February the day of the fight in Box2, the nest box was still empty.

In fact, it wasn't until Thursday 10th March that Joy first brought in some nesting material - the traditional beakful of green moss.

By Sunday 20th March, ten days later, Joy had still not made much progress.  However, over the next 9 days she seemed to get down to nest building properly ...

... and by Tuesday 29th March she had finally covered the floor of the box.

By the end of that day, Joy had even started to bring in some feathers!

Pink fluff!  Every year for a good number of years, Box2 has had a sprinkling of pink fluff.  Where is comes from we just don't know.

This picture, taken on Wednesday 6th April, must be one of the few times that I have managed to catch it being brought into the nest box.

At the end of the same day, Joy has clearly decided her nest is finished enough for her to roost in it!  She has done so ever since.

However, we cannot be sure when she started roosting as she doesn't come to roost before the time switch turns recording off.  The only way we can take such pictures is to turn the system on briefly well after it has become dark.

Tomorrow I will tell you about Zoe's nest!