It looks as though our theory about the sex of our bluetits is about to bite the dust - but more of that later.
Today, we are back monitoring the box in our back garden (Box1). This also has at least two birds interested in it.
The first two of these images show both birds as they change places.
The third shows one bird by itself in the box. All three pictures were taken within one second - they don't hang about do they!
This picture shows one of the birds quite definitely doing a nesting wriggle.
And here is another taken about 10 seconds later - no doubt about it!
So what's the problem?
The problem is that this picture and the picture below are also the same bird - and it looks like Fantail!
It has a thick white band around the back of its head! We had thought that this implied it was male and the fact that it performed a nesting wriggle implied it was female - both theories cannot be right!
Friday 28th February, 2003
There is a shelf outside our dining room window which we use to feed mealworms to our robins. This morning I was casually looking at it when a very scruffy bluetit came to investigate. I suddenly realised that this was Fluffy. She looked even worse in the flesh than through the video camera. Unfortunately, she flew away before I could get my camera. We shall have to keep a watch out for her in future.