Camp Road Springwatch
A Nest Box Video Diary
(Adrian Shepard)
Spring is definitely in the air and our camera nest box has lots of activity. This is very exciting as the nest box has been up for two years with no interest shown in it until now.
It all began around 2nd April 2016 - I will refer to this as Day 1. We turned on the camera, as we had done previous years, just to see if by chance anything had changed. I originally put some leaves and bits of grass in the box so it was possible to detect if a bird had visited by the fact things had moved around. To our surprise the box had been cleaned out of almost all material. Then a blue tit flew in, it was shuffling and fluttering and what surprised us most was it was pecking too. The pecking on the base of the box was like a woodpecker and it was very determined.
This prompted us to do some research on Blue tit activity particularly as to why our Blue tit was hammering like a bird possessed at the bottom of the box. It seems our Blue tit was most likely a male and after clearing the potential nest site would start to do some nest building and try to attract a mate. But as to why they hammer there was no conclusive information. Some reports said it may be testing the wood to see if it was rotten as building a nest in a tree the wood could be potentially on soft or rotten wood. Other suggestions were: to make some noise to attract a mate, it could be looking for insects to clean out from the wood and lastly because Blue tit's beaks are tough and relatively long and pointed it was to do with sharpening and cleaning the bill.
With all this activity and interesting behaviour I thought it worth sharing it in a video diary. So below are videos showing the progress of the nest building and (fingers crossed) some eggs laid and chicks being raised. I'm afraid the quality of the video isn't the best, as the nest box camera connects via a cable to a television and the easiest way to capture the video is to point a mobile phone at the TV screen. But it's very interesting to see and hear the behaviour of the birds, see how the nest is 'constructed' and assuming we get eggs, then how the chicks are raised.
NOTE: I will post the latest video at the top, i.e. start with Day 1 video at the bottom
The camera nest box
The nest box was purchased complete with camera/mic for about £40. The box has half white perspex sides to let more light in without being transparent. The camera connects via a cable (it came with about 10m) to TV SCART plug which also has a small power adapter wired to it for permanent power. We mounted the box on the north side of the house just around the corner from our bedroom window to allow access for the cable to our TV. Nest boxes are best mounted on North or East facing locations to avoid direct sun. The camera isn't great resolution but does produce good pictures at night.
(I must admit it's more interesting and exciting than watching a lot of the programs you get on TV these days)
Day 15
WE HAVE EGGS...
It's so eggciting 🙂 ....apparently blue tits will lay an egg each day (usually 8-12 eggs) but they won't start incubating them until they are all laid. We think our blue tit has laid 3-4 eggs so far. During the egg laying period they leave the nest for most of the day to eat as much as they can in preparation for sitting on the eggs. Incubation can last 13-15 days with the only food coming from their partner (if he's nice and caring).
(by the way this is a still image, not a video as nothing else was happening)
