blue tits puzzling behaviour - will they/won't they?! (1 Viewer)

[Racheli5]

Hi

I'm new to the forum so hello.

I hope someone can help me with this.

I work at a school. We have always had the odd blue tits nesting but never in our camera box. This year finally one came in last night and started nest building. I was so happy. We also have a feeding station in the garden which has always been there about 6 metres from the box site. We had been off school and the feeders were running low so to keep things normal I refilled them. About an hour later the blue tit kept constantly pecking at the screw/nail holes in the bottom of the box. They seemed to be annoying him. After a while he started taking bits away from the nest and basically flying about and dropping them to disguard them. My colleague and I agreed he was dismantling the nest. So we got up into the box and dropped a bit of an plain wood over the screws to hide them. Later both birds came back and visited a few times pecking and looking round. I haven't seen them put any new nesting materials in. What do you think is the problem? Will they come back? Do they get annoyed by screw heads. It is a standard box from handykam. Any suggestions ? It's very frustrating.

 

[Venger]

Hi Rachel,

We've had a not dissimilar situation with the blue tits in our handy kam camera nest box...I asked on here about it and then went on to do more research on the net.

It is very common behaviour for blue tits to peck at the nest box both the opening and the base. It's thought that this is them checking that the nest site is secure and sound for them to build on/in. In our box they hammered at the bottom for 2 weeks so hard that they created a layer of little chips/splinters over the bottom of the box, some they took out, the rest they left in.

The other thing we observed them doing is taking several beakfulls of moss into the nest only to then take it all out again. Finally though they really got going and the nest is nearly finished.

My advice would be to do nothing to the box and just be patient, I know it's a frustration but hopefully they'll soon get building properly.

Hope this helps.

Nick

 

[Racheli5]

More strange behaviour !

Thank you for your helpful reply. It's day three end today and basically this has gone on for a few days with the same pattern. Late afternoon they fill the box with lots of stuff. Then when I come in in he morning they do a combination of emptying again. They also seem to do a funny sort of waggle dance with the wings spread. They bring stuff in then take it out. I will keep my fingers crossed.

Hi Rachel,

We've had a not dissimilar situation with the blue tits in our handy kam camera nest box...I asked on here about it and then went on to do more research on the net.

It is very common behaviour for blue tits to peck at the nest box both the opening and the base. It's thought that this is them checking that the nest site is secure and sound for them to build on/in. In our box they hammered at the bottom for 2 weeks so hard that they created a layer of little chips/splinters over the bottom of the box, some they took out, the rest they left in.

The other thing we observed them doing is taking several beakfulls of moss into the nest only to then take it all out again. Finally though they really got going and the nest is nearly finished.

My advice would be to do nothing to the box and just be patient, I know it's a frustration but hopefully they'll soon get building properly.

Hope this helps.

Nick

 

[Nutcracker]

It's still too cold and early in the spring for them to be seriously thinking about laying yet - what they're doing is 'delaying tactics' so they don't get ahead of the weather.

 

[Venger]

No worries

The little shimmy they do across the bottom of the box with their wings out makes a lot more sense once they start to fill the box with material and stop taking it out. It's how they push the material to the sides of the box and pack it in nice and tight, they shimmy from the centre and then end up with the cup in the centre which, if ours are anything to go by, they fill with a bit of moss at the bottom but then lots of feathers and very soft material.

I reckon it was about 3 weeks in total before our birds started building in ernest and stopped taking material back out.

All the very best.

Nick