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Blue Tit 2007
Blue
Tits 2007
14 March
Wonderful weather. 15°. A small technical problem does not allow knowing the number of visits today.
A lot of construction work today. She brings stuff all day.
A small bit of straw remained stuck in the entry, in her preceding passage. She alights one second on the branch of the birch located just opposite to the entry of the nesting box. And she leaves also a second for us to take a picture. In order to do not remain permanently behind the objective, we listen to the song of the titmouses and observe the male.
When it arrives, she utters of tiny tsee tsee very soft and so announces her arrival. We just need to leave the window a little ajar to hear her.
If he is there we can foretell her arrival by several seconds. He takes the usual parade: lowered wings, raised tail and sings facing her arrival direction.
We always wonder about the source of moss and at the time of our walks in the neighborhood we make try to locate mossy places in the parks.
An upside down arrival.
The rest on the day is devoted to rearrange multiple times the nest stuff. Sometimes she does not like any more a bit of stuff. She takes and throws away the undesired tufts. This time we saw it clearly, but we did not succeeded to take it in a picture. But we could examine refused stuff thrown away at a small distance from the nest.
Airing the mattress?
In reality this is the result of one of the cleanings. The
moss tuft remained stuck in the
entry.
A moment latter, she enters and put back the moss.
Another favored activity: try to enlarge the entry hole.
It pricks so much the wood inside that she succeeds in
removing small pieces of wood.
Take off.
15 March
Still another wonderful day. 15° C.
Today she does not do, she undoes. She continues to reject nest stuff.
After inspecting the nest and packing the moss, she chooses a tuft and goes out to throw it away. I found two tufts.
Then, she roost on the box entry hole, pecks the wood, enters again and chooses the next tuft.
Is she a perfectionist? Is some of the stuff stingy or improper? Puzzler! She has her reasons. Put your work twenty times upon the anvil.
Last year, we did not observe this behavior, but we were less equipped in March. We really began daily observation only since April.
Penelope
Picture is not very good, but neither the shutter not me
were fast enough.
She is not as his man who has difficulties to go throw the nest hole. She exits right away instantly.
She has moss in the bill and moss stuck to the claws.
Inside view of tuft ready to be thrown away.
At the beginning of the afternoon, she has finished the house cleaning. She resumes her activities.
In the afternoon, long seance of wood picking.
She shakes the rug and then packs the moss with a ribbon around the
neck.
16
March
Weather a little overcast, a little misty, white clouds in the
afternoon. 9°C.
Day devoted to gnaw the entry hole. It is 15h. Since this morning she
pecks the entry wood. She enters now and then and returns to
peck.
At work from inside.
...and from outside.
She roost outside and
passes the head inside twisting it to tackle the inner edge.
Roosted at the entry, she enters the head, works, and the raise the
head and watches around. The she enters again the head. The consequence
is that, each time, she blocks the light inside the nest and
the
motion detector triggers a new picture of the empty nest. Today she
took a lot of pictures!
Wood pecking demonstration. We can see that she has tore down several
small bits of wood.
In the afternoon, Penelope (I think that she is going to keep this name) gets rid of other moss tufts. Then both of them leave.
17 March
Overcast, cooler, 9°. About 100 visits.
The sparrows peck the prunus flowers, the titmouses the young catkins of the poplar and the tender buds of the birch. The flowers of primroses were tasted with eagerness by sparrows; there are no more flowers, only leaves. We understand why the Jardin des Plantes (Paris botanical garden) protected their primroses with nets.Today it is the day for dry grass, which she brings during the day and, of course, at its favorite hour from 5 to 7.
18
March
Rain and strong wind all the morning. 8°C in the
afternoon.
Rain stops and the weather lightens in the afternoon.
A visitor of midday, a beautiful male black blackbird!
It posed there, relaxed, very long time. 
Penelope spends long moments to arrange its feathers and her nest and
remains quietly and thoughtful installed in the center of the
nest.
19
March
Overcast and cold (3° the morning, 6° the afternoon).
Strong
wind from the NNW. Snow showers in the morning. This morning we did not
see them much. When weather is bad with, like this morning, much wind,
they are less present. But they pass by, on average, every 1/2
hour.
14h: The afternoon the sky clears a little, there is always wind but weather lightens. Here they are. Activities resume.
But we did not yet saw her bringing moss or grass, which must be quite wet today.
16h30: again very strong wind and hail, the weather is dark. Definitely bad day, the wind from the north is cool. 35 visits.
18h10 finally a moss tuft; quite small. Neither he nor she passed since more than one hour.
18h45: 7 visits to bring materials since 18h10. Only she works; he is not there.
19h: last visit, it makes almost night. This time he escorts her. They leave together.
20 March
Overcast,
all gray and cold (2° in the morning). Strong and chilly wind.
At
10h45
the visits begin again. At the end of the morning, the Sun comes out
and he starts
to sing again.
In
the
afternoon the wind was calmed, the weather improves (
She shapes materials with her body, with this pretty movement of the wings. Watch VIDEO (646Ko, 50s).
Here
he is,
hopping towards the nesting box, followed by his female. It goes to the
door,
sometimes clings and looks inside, then moves aside to let her pass.
Wind
and
bad weather start again at the end of the afternoon. The wind is almost
full
north and blows violently on our balcony.