We are now in the silly season from the birds point of view. They are still firming up their pairing arrangements and establishing their claim to their nest boxes, but there is nothing serious for them to do. From our point of view, they seem to spend their time in pointless activity, like taking nesting material into the nest boxes - and then removing it again.
We're not even sure yet that we have two established partnerships! There certainly seemed to be more than two bluetits flying around box 1 today.
Boris
spends much of his time trying to get Kelly to take more interest in the
nest box. He repeatedly enters the box and keeps hopping up onto the
hole, perhaps to look for her.
"Where's my girl" he seems to be saying. |
Looking
at him from the outside you can see he appears to be doing more than just
watching the world go by.
|
When
he thinks he has caught her eye, he hops down into the nest box and keeps a
low profile. If she then doesn't appear, he flies up to the hole again
and has another go.
|
This
time you can see that she thinks about it ...
|
...
but decides against!
|
Five
seconds later, poor old Boris comes to the hole to see what has happened to
her.
|
"Where's
she gone to this time!"
|