Bluetit Diary    Mar 2017 (2)

 

 

Thursday 2nd March, 2017

As we seem to have a resident pair in Box2, the female of which looks rather an old scruffy bird, I am tempted to call them by the same names that we used last year.  However, that is probably tempting fate, so I have decided to call the female Gerry, as she looks rather old, so the male must be Tom!

As I expected, The nesting material in Box2 has largely disappeared!

This was the sight that greeted us this morning!

It was about half past nine, so Gerry had had plenty of time to remove it all, but even though it was expected, it was a bit disappointing.

Soon after, Gerry came in to the nest box, and to make it clear she was still in nest building mode, she did a nesting wriggle for us.

Ten minutes later Tom entered the box.

He was clearly expecting Gerry as he kept stretching himself to look out of the hole.

As soon as he sensed she was coming in, Tom crouched down in expectation of Gerry's immanent arrival.

And in comes Gerry!

Immediately, Tom departs.  (This image was taken less than a second after the previous one.)

And Gerry is left in charge of the nest box.

I have made a couple of comments to the effect that Gerry looks quite an old bluetit.  This image is a close-up of Gerry about to leave the nest box, and shows her rather tired head plumage.  As well as her head feathers, those that cover her body are not the sleek feathers of a young bluetit and remind us very much of Spikey, one of the two females that graced this nest box last year.

It will be interesting to see what happens this year!

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