Evaluating the bird box

Today I captured the video below. The male blue tit calls the female into the box (the video has no sound but you can see his his bill moving). The female then enters and inspects the box. You can see her flapping her wings, indicating she is looking for a place to build a nest. Later on she will use these same moves to spread out the nest materials. Although there is no material in the box yet (and I’m not expecting it for another month), this nest building reflex is already there!

Female evaluating the bird box, 15 March 2013, 8:23am

Catching an Insect

Since I always see the same male blue tit around the birdbox (sometimes together with a female), I’m pretty confident that they will attempt to nest here in the spring. To improve the safety for them I have now made the opening of the box more narrow (25mm instead of 28mm). This means that great tits cannot enter anymore. This improves the safety for the blue tits, but obviously I now completely rely on them for a nest.

I recently captured this footage of the male catching an insect inside the box.

This is the only male blue tit that I see in and around the box, so I think he owns it now :). In this short video you can see him catch an insect (5 March 2013, 12:50pm)

On the same day I captured this footage of what I think is the female. There appears to be a first hint of the flapping wings thing that the females do when they evaluate nest sites in the spring.

First hint of wing-flapping while evaluating nest site? (5 March 2013, 9:58am)