Plume de Ville

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 Blue Tits 2007

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9 March

Gloomy time. A little drizzle. 10°C. Only 31 visits, but long ones.

This morning she brought materials for the nest. It is the first time that we see her bring something before late afternoon. Nest build-up goes on. She brings a lot of moss. He stays nearby the nest, as usual.

Pretty moss with "fruits".

















It rains, she is drenched.

Strong wind this afternoon.

These last days she knocked so hard on the webcams that yesterday we decided to know the actual conditions of the camera cables. Here is the situation:

Originally, cables were held together to the wall by large pins pricked in the wood.    

No more pins, wires free.

We decided to modify the situation this night. As the nest construction is well advanced, we think that we must act as soon as possible.

10 March

Working evening.

 

The lower plank of the nest was delicately removed in order to do not disturb the nest built-up.

The right side is the side near the entry hole of the box.

Note the thickness of the moss and hay mix.

This is the new design.

The nest box is upside down.

A wood slat protects the cables from view and beak. The two cameras and the LED are protected by a non reflecting fiberglass board.  Two glass windows where fixed for the objectives and the LED. Glasses are just microscope slides.

We will see tomorrow if this configuration is welcomed.

We did not found the pins. May be they are still in the moss; but it is highly probable that she got rid of them throwing them outside. Tits like a neat nest  and clean out all unexpected objects. The upper camera in the picture has a small aluminium cache. The object that she tore out 18 February.  This object was protected by a thin blue plastic film. Now it is clean and bright. She tore out all the film! Just some small bits of film remain where it could not be reached.

10 Mars in the morning. All is right. Since two days we switched off the visible lighting (the LED). We have disturbed her enough with all these modifications. Nothing is really natural with all these techniques. It is marvelous to be able to follow the nesting but we must admit that the conditions are far from the natural ones. When a nest box installed in the wild, even is the situation is far from natural, there are not all these incongruous objects that we put in our nest box .    

First visit at 8h15. Inspection of the new configuration. She looks all around. First looks.  Curious...

He also enters to look around.

There is a new small screw in this corner that draws attention. 

She must anyhow climb a look what is up there.

But it is all right. The new interior decoration seems to obtain her agreement. She resumes her usual activities.

This time, she does not spend all her time trying to tear down the cables.

There will be 42 visits (we mean entries in the nest box) until 18h45.

11 March

Wonderful weather. Wonderful sun, not a cloud. Nest work progresses. 35 visits.

She is busy with the nest. We did well to modify the setting.

Late evening she came with big long ribbons!

The place where she sits will probably be the center of the future nest.

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12 mars

Wonderful day. 16° 17 visits at 16h30.

They where absent the first part of the afternoon.

She adapts the nest turning and upturning the moss. Moss looks brown because the coloration of light reflected in the wood walls. The true colour is green. In the morning, photos and videos are taken in natural light.

Watch VIDEO   (614 Ko, 28s)


He entered the nest.  He comes out but, as he is a little plump he must push to pass the shoulders.   

At the last moment he thinks that he has not finished his inspection. Instead of flying away and return, he turns over on the spot and enters again.            

Thanks to their powerful claws, the titmouses are able to hang at small roughness of vertical surfaces. This can be seen in this photograph.























17h40. She brings stuff for the nest. On average 7 to 10 minutes of interval between each voyage, until the light lowers appreciably (until 18h47, 7 passages “moss”).

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13 mars

Always a splendid day, 14°. 51 passages to 18h. 

She remains a long time in the nesting box to arrange her nest; she moves moss, packs materials. 

We suspect that from time to time she throws out some stuff. 

This evening she works since 17h30 as usual. Her coming and going is ceaseless, she comes every 5 minutes with either dry grasses or moss. The construction of the nest accelerates.

Here is hay to place.

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