Bluetit Diary    Feb 2021 (3)

Ella seems to have found a long piece of black tape from somewhere - could it be an old piece of cassette tape?  Whatever it is, her enthusiasm is impressive but her choice of nesting material isn't!

I think this is Ernie trying to find out what on earth is going on!

Whatever he said seems to have upset Ella!

But not enough to dampen her enthusiasm!  Ella is really excited by all this nest building carry on.  She does the first nesting wriggle of the season to celebrate.

Then she appears to leave the box with the tape still in her beak!

Here she is flying off with it.

You can see the tape is being pulled out of the nest box hole.

Away it goes ...

... leaving the nest box nearly empty again.

Just a minute later she is back - still with the tape!

She is still as excited as ever! (Another nesting wriggle.)

However, by the end of the day, she has clearly decided that this tape is not the right stuff for her chicks' nest!

There's not been much change here today.

Four days have passed without anything happening in Box2.  But at least the mysterious old bluetit has come back again.

Having said that, we get two visits today!

I was getting increasingly concerned that Box2 didn't have a pair of bluetits who had taken possession. However, when I looked at the Overview on this website to see what has happened in previous years, I was encouraged to see that nest building often did not start until well into March and sometimes it was as late as April.

Yet another nesting wriggle.

Today she has started bring in moss.

No comment!

Another month has gone by. At least Box1 looks hopeful for a brood of chicks this year!