Ten seconds later a bird is back. Which one is not clear to me at the moment!
She is a female anyway!
She doesn't stay long though.
About a minute later a bird re-enters the box - this time with a beakful of hay. This bird must be a female.
A rather fine picture of this female bluetit. Her head feathers are very smooth looking and I will call her Suzie and the other female Rosie.
Over the next 10 minutes or so Suzie made lots of nesting wriggles and manipulated the nest cup into shape.
Rosie now comes into the box too.
There is a slight pause ...
... and then suddenly Suzie leaves.
Rosie does a celebratory nesting wriggle.
A short while later it looks as though she is about to leave ...
... but no, she returns to the nest cup.
Rosie burrows down in the nest cup.
Rosie leaves only a few seconds later.
This looks like Rosie with some hay.
While Rosie is in the nest cup, Suzie returns to the nest box. I'm not sure whether Rosie is making a 'feed me' face or a 'get out' face - they both look very much alike to me! (As do the two birds!)
Surely this must be a 'feed me' face? After all, Suzie has something in her beak and is in just the position a male would adopt if he had something to feed to his female.
It looks here as though Suzie is about to feed Rosie, but this is an illusion!
Suzie just passed by Rosie's open beak with the bit of fluff, or whatever it is, still in her beak.
Can you tell them apart?
I think Suzie is on the left and Rosie on the right! If you can see the white band at the back of Rosie's head, you will see that it is a bit broken up on the left.
Suzie leaves ...
... and a few seconds later, Rosie leaves.
Suzie is very keen of hay!
This is Rosie sitting, or perhaps I should say standing, on Suzie
Rosie leaves ...
... followed by Suzie
This toing and froing went on for most of the day.
Only one of our females roosted in the box overnight, however. I wonder what will happen when there are eggs to look after?
It is amazing to me that these two females seem to tolerate each other so well. Perhaps they share the same male and perhaps also they are related. Time will tell whether or not this toleration will continue once there are eggs being laid!