Bluetit Diary    Feb 2011 (12)

 

 

Saturday 26th February, 2011 (cont)

After the fight, nothing appears to happen for several minutes.  A bird came to look into the box, but didn't go into it.

Then after 3 minutes, a bluetit again goes into the box.

Inside the box.

But which bluetit is it?  It looks like the female to me.

It is the female.  Here she is doing a mini nesting wriggle.

And another one.

Now a third!  Before doing this one, she briefly left the box and looked around her from the roof.

Shortly after this she left the box again.

She's soon back, though.

Then another bird (the male?) lands on the roof.

This clearly concerns the female inside the box which goes into display mode.

She stays in hostile display mode for several seconds.

There then starts a period of stalemate with the female inside displaying and shouting abuse (look at her beak!) at the male who comes close enough to look but not close enough to be able to do anything.

After half a minute of getting nowhere, the male again ventures on to the hole ...

... only to suffer the same fate that Will suffered from Harry in Box3 - the female grabs him by the claw and he can't get away so he flutters helplessly on the outside of the box.

At times it gets very close and personal!

In the end, the male escapes and flies off ...

... leaving the female on guard inside the box.