Male posturing

Today I captured some images of a male posturing in the entrance of the bird box, but unfortunately most of it is outside the camera view.

The bird enters the box, looks around and then perches in the opening of the box. Unfortunately at this point you can only see its tail and part of the wings, but you can still see male posturing (starting at 0:31), fanning his tail and spreading his wings slightly.

However, the bird box has still not been claimed by one specific bird. In the afternoon I captured images of another male in the box. I was home when these images were recorded and I could see from my window that this male was posturing in the same way (outside the box). He was together with another bird, presumably a female, but she did not enter.

In the video you can see the bird calling (to the female?) but unfortunately I have no sound in this video. The software that I use for automatic recording triggered by motion detection doesn’t record the sound properly. If I want sound I need to start the recording manually. Still, you can clearly see that the bird is calling and this is the first time that I have captured this on video.

My understanding is that the male is supposed to call the female trying to lure her into the nest site. Hopefully I will catch a successful attempt soon! 

Blue tit versus wasp

Just captured. This is quite funny :)

Another female visits

This morning the box was visited again and I saw the same thing as yesterday: wriggling/ wing fanning and in the end she picks up some of the wood shavings from the box and flies out.

I managed to see where the bird was going with the wood shavings: she flew into a tree about 7 meters away and dropped them. So it appears she is not interested in the material itself but just wants to remove it from the box.

One of the questions I have: is this the same female that visited yesterday? Well, it is very difficult to see because the birds look so similar and much depends on the light and posture, but based on some frame to frame comparison of the video I think they are different birds.

Female behaviour

I just read somewhere on the web that this wriggling/ wing fanning is typical behaviour of a female that wants to make a nest. Fingers crossed.....

House hunting?

Blue tits are still visiting the box on a regular basis. But they are behaving a bit different than before. Especially in the first video where the bird is flapping his wings inside the box. I have not seen that before and I have no clue what it means (if anything).... At the end he takes some of the wood shavings (not much left now) before flying out, like I have seen many times during the autumn.

In the second video we see a different bird that visited about 16 minutes later. He is picking up some droppings and puts them at one spot. Why is he doing this? 

Small changes in the light in the first half of the video suggest that there is another bird hanging at the opening of the box (outside). I have seen that many times before. So perhaps this is a couple evaluating potential nest sites?