Last year's (1999) birds
Fluff roosts
Fluff is usurped
A truly excellent site about these birds
Visitors since 27th September 2000:
7th April 2000. After several days of cold (even snowy) weather, spring is back on course and the birds have lost no time in getting started on nest-building. It is the medium sized pair of birds who are active. For several days there have been wisps of straw in the box, but now the birds are co-operating in bringing in real nest materials.
After entry, the bird takes a moment before dropping the beakful of moss.
Repeat runs happen within a very few minutes.
After a few trips, the partner looks in to see what progress has been made.
8th April 2000. Today was the first serious nest-building day in the camera-equipped box. To remind ourselves of what the finished product may look like, we see a photo of last year's nest, taken today. The dark green moss has faded in colour; it should be the colour of today's discard. We see that there are essentially three components to the nest; straw, moss, and feathers. The feathers arrive last, but the straw and moss are already arriving as can be seen in the nest today at 5pm .
The male is assisting the female in building the nest. The male assists the female in providing some tamping activity, to settle the nest
and to knit the materials together
but the male himself gets tangled in the straw and has to detach it from himself on the way out of the hole.
The male becomes wrapped up in a tangle of nest and has to struggle to get on top of it again. During the tussles in the box a wing is seen to good advantage.
The video shows 28 arrivals in the box from 8.15 to 11am, then 31 arrivals from 11.20 to 2.20pm, then a further 15 arrivals from 2.30pm to 4.30pm. At 4.30pm the workbirds set about tidying up the nest construction for the night, which takes about 15 minutes of spinning, knitting, tamping, weaving and rearrangement. At 6.30 a beak looks in repeatedly to see that all is well, then there are no further visits.
9th April 2000. Surprise. Only one brief visit from a bird all day. But there have been few, if any, small birds in the garden and although it has been a sunny day, there has been a stiff East to Northeast wind blowing, keeping the temperature down. Unlike yesterday, which was balmy enough for the skylarks to sing on the wing, today the only sign of bird activity has been two crows, up in a tree on the horizon, building a swaying nest and being buffeted by the wind.
10th April 2000. There was mind-boggling activity today in the box. For most of the day, visits were only sporadic. Then at 2.45 pm both birds entered, and, one at a time, took about 40 minutes to tease and arrange the nest materials. More material was cast out than brought in today. The birds were having trouble with the tangle of straw and moss; repeatedly, they took a wadge of stuff to the exit, shook it out outside, and brought back the bit they wanted, sometimes moss, sometimes straw. This activity makes compulsive video but is not amenable to being presented in still images. At the end of the activity they had achieved a neat ring of nest with a circular patch of bare floor in the middle. Satisfied by this, at 3.30 they downed tools ("beaks?") for the day and were not seen again. We wonder whether our birds are experienced. They certainly seem large enough to be older than yearlings, but perhaps they are learning by trial and error, on the job, supported by instinct.
11th April 2000. Wet cold day today. Few visits, no building, no observed entries.
12th April 2000. It was sleeting and snowing first thing this morning. Nevertheless, the bird came to look several times at its construction work, and entered the box at least twice between 8am and 11am to form the materials into a neat nest ring.
13th April 2000. The weather remains atrocious, but the birds seem to be pushing on with their building in between the rain squalls. There were numerous entries to the nest box today, and addition of a quantity of material.
14th April 2000. Another cold and overcast day, but mercifully dry for the most part. The birds got cracking properly on nest building today, visiting the box every 3 minutes for sessions lasting upwards of an hour. Between 8am and 6pm there were at least 65 visits to the box transporting nesting materials. The male looked in repeatedly to see how the nest was progressing.
and occasionally the female shouted at the male, who knows what...
The female spent several long sessions, up to 15 minutes, in organising the nesting materials...
Sometimes she was in such a hurry to get the moss in that she left some caught in the hole...
Finally satisfied that the nest is now habitable for the night, the female comes in to roost after dark. This is the first roosting bird in the box since the catastrophe on 2nd January, when the box fell off its mountings.
The weather forecast for tomorrow predicts another wet day.
15th April 2000. A cold, wet, and nasty day. However, the bird now knows that she has to get on with the nest.
16th April 2000. A brighter day, with some nest building.
17th April 2000. A windy day. These birds, weighing only 1/3 ounce each, are at some disadvantage navigating in windy weather. However, the bird has started to feather the nest.
Nest box 2 has been blown sideways by the strong winds. In re-securing it to the wall we took this picture of the nest progress: wool from the sheep over the fence is visible, as are a few white (magpie?) feathers.
On the dot of 7pm, as in the last three days, the bird arrived, shook the water off its feathers and settled to roost.
The bird has been roosting at an hour before local sunset, and leaving the box within five minutes of local sunrise at 6am.
18th April 2000. Today was another wet day; undeterred, the birds kept up their visits to the box, mostly with feathers.
19th April 2000. By contrast, today was fine and warm, with outdoor temperatures up to 14C. Between 2.30pm and 5.30pm there was frenetic building activity; we counted 36 visits bringing feathers in 2 hours, followed by many visits bringing straw. The nest box appears to be at least 6cm deep in material now. The bird did not return to roost this evening. We are not sure whether there is (the first) an egg buried deep in the nest material. Certainly, the female bird spent periods of up to 15 minutes at a time sitting in the nest, and encouraging entries by the male from time to time.
