Bluetit Diary    Mar 2021 (2)

Another visitor to Box1. This time it is Ernie.

Ella arrives a few seconds later, upon which Ernie immediately leaves!

Once he has gone, Ella does a nesting wriggle.

There follows an interesting sequence that I can't make much sense of. It starts with Ella coming into Box1.

This is followed by another bluetit approaching the nest box.

It land on the entrance hole and has a look inside the box ...

... and then immediately flies away again!

A couple of seconds later it is back - and again it sticks its head into the entrance hole.

Ella's response can hardly be called welcoming!

Nevertheless, it looks as though he is going into the nest box.

This response from Ella is surprising as it looks as though he has some food in his beak - and so if this is not Ernie it is presumably another suitor.

In any event, rather than go in the box, the newcomer flies off.

Two seconds later, he is back again!

He still has the food in his beak, but Ella's response is just the same.

So again, the newcomer flies off.

Ella spends some time on the hole looking out of the box.

Finally, she too flies off.

20 seconds later, she is back inside the box.

The newcomer must have been watching, as straight away he comes to the box again with food in his beak.

This time he actually goes into the box!

Ella doesn't actually fight him, but neither does she take the food that is on offer.  She just keeps up this hostile demeanour.  So after literally one second he flies off again.  Ella has given him no encouragement at all!

So what was that bird and what was going on? We have had instances of one male looking after two females (see Box2's story in 2016 for example) but never two males looking after one female!

Before we finish for the day, here is an image of Ella bringing some moss to the nest box for a change. About time too!