This is Bess.
She has smooth head and body feathers and a broad white band around the back of her head.
I am having a great difficulty in telling our female bluetits apart - or even from knowing how many different females there are visiting Box2!
She is clearly female as is shown by her nesting wriggle.
Thirty seconds later in comes bluetit number two!
The newcomer is Spikey. As well as her spike, which is now much less obvious than it was at first, she has dark blue markings on her right cheek feathers.
Note her head feathers and her white head band.
Directly she came into the box, Bess left leaving Spikey in charge.
Eleven hours have passed and it is now nearly 7.15pm - getting near to roosting time.
Which of our birds is this bluetit? Its head feathers are much more tousled than other birds, and I initially thought this must be Hugh, the male. I may even have called it Hugh in earlier posts! However, its subsequent actions eliminates this possibility.
As well as blotchy face feathers, this bird has quite pronounced white patches where its ears would be if it had them.
Spikey (note the small spike and narrow white head band!) comes in to join the other bird . . .
. . . which immediately proceeds to do a nesting wriggle. So much for the theory that this is Hugh!
As this bird's head feathers are a bit of a mess, we shall call her Calamity Jane, or Plain Jane, or just Jane for short.
Whatever we call her we must face the probability that this year we have three females interested in Box2! Surely they can't all be going to lay eggs in this nest box?
Spikey just looks at Jane's antics. She seems to be protesting verbally but there is no sign of overt hostility. Certainly these two birds are not fighting!
She doesn't even do anything when Jane attempts to sit in the nest cup!
Spikey has her beak open, so presumably she is protesting at Jane's presence - but takes no aggressive action against her.
Look at Jane's head feathers in this picture. There is no way that this bird could be Bess! They are a bit of a mess and make it easy to distinguish Jane from both Bess and Spikey.
Jane turns to face Spikey . . .
. . . and then leaves the box, shortly followed by Spikey.
Only a few minutes have passed and this looks as though Spikey is back in the box.
Note Spikey's the thin white head band in contrast to the thick band that Bess has.
She doesn't stay long
About half an hour later, Spikey comes to the box again . . .
. . . and this time she settles down to roost.