Bluetit Diary    Apr 2021 (5)

Here is Ella, working hard as usual incubating her eggs!

There are, as I suspected there would be, still only six of them.

Scruffy is at last roosting in Box2 for the first time. Is this a good sign or am I clutching at straws?

What's going to happen this year in Box2 - if anything - is still uncertain!  Here is the great tit back for a visit - and this time it's inside the box!

Another visit to Box2 by the GT.

Is this Scruffy? Either it's a different bird, or she has managed to smarten herself up quite a lot!

She may have paid a visit to the box, but she didn't stay long. Scruffy used to spend ages doing nothing!

This bird definitely looks smarter than Scruffy!

Another visit to Box2 by the great tit.

Both great tits! This is clearly getting serious.

The second GT has hardly arrived before it goes off again.

Another visit by the great tit.

This must be another bluetit. It's far too smart to be Scruffy! I think I shall call her Flora!

Whoever she is, she had better watch out. The great tit is back again.

This time it's Flora who is back.

Here she is hunkered down and shouting to try to keep the bird outside from coming in.  Unfortunately, I cannot show you the view from outside as the camera has drifted  so much to the right that you cannot see the nest box hole.

It doesn't seem to take much notice and starts to come in anyway. This one doesn't look like Scruffy either!

It gets such a hostile reception that it decides to stay outside after all.

Now which bluetit is this? It's all getting far too complicated for me!

It's certainly a smart one.

Perhaps I have been calling Flora and Fergus, her putative partner, Scruffy for ages, without realising it!

This image taken a few seconds later, doesn't help much.

Neither does this!