Bluetits abound in our garden at the moment - probably because Elizabeth spends so much time looking after them. On the left you can see their regular fare - home made fat blocks. None of your sawdust filled rubbish here!
Each one lasts about 24 hours and when loaded into the fat feeder can attract half a dozen bluetits, a couple of great tits and several long tailed tits simultaneously! As well as these regulars, we sometimes also get a nuthatch, the occasional coal tit, a robin and a dunnock.
Even chaffinches try to get inside sometimes.
So, there is plenty of competition for one of our nest boxes! This was a visitor to Box2 on 10th January.
Here's a visitor to Box1 on the 11th.
Another visitor to Box2 on 16th January. Box1 and Box2 are both getting several visits each day but Box3 is less well visited.
None of the visitors appears to behave as though it owns the box. They all approach cautiously and look more like interested visitors inspecting the property.
Even Box3 gets the odd visit. This was taken today.
The side view camera still looks very good!.
He clearly thinks another bird is about to come inside. He is crouching down and keeping well out of the way.
If another bird does come in, then that's a good sign that we have a pair.
Sure enough, there is another bird outside.
It is behaving more like a female than another male aiming to drive the other bird away. And the male's response inside is definitely one of a bluetit that is expecting a female rather than a battle!
Will she go inside?
I think that's what the male bluetit inside the box is asking himself too!
He isn't patient enough and flies up to the hole to see what is happening.
Of course, this just scares the female off!
She doesn't fly away though, she perches on the side of the box while the male has a look around. He decides to fly off and leave her to it. Here you can see him easing himself out of the nest box.
She flies up to the hole again ...
... but she doesn't go into the box.
Still, it's still pretty early in the year. You can see we still have snow all around us here.
Patience!