New birdsite autumn 2000
Broad Street, Guildford, UK.
Our primary birdbox has been cleaned out over the summer. We have disinfected it with boiling water, and we have cleaned and adjusted the infra-red video camera, reducing the reflections from the perspex cover, and resetting the field of view. We have also made the inbuilt microphone work again after last year's problems.
Bearing in mind that [last year's birdsite] it was December 1999 when last year's roosting started, we are surprised at the early occupancy of this "desirable bird residence" in Guildford.
Here is the sleeping "new" bird on the evening of 1st October 2000. This bird is a magnificent specimen of Parus Caerulaeus; we are not sure whether it is male or female. It has a purposeful air about it; on the 30th September when the terrace doors were opened, the human movements were enough to disturb it so that it left in haste. However, the next night it was back as if nothing untoward had happened.
3rd October 2000. Our bird does not waste any time in going to bed. Here it is having just come in at 6.15pm, taking a look around at the box before fluffing and adopting the roosting position (as in the picture above). Here it is sleek and streamlined, with all its feathers laid down.
About five minutes elapses. The bird fluffs several times, and then relaxes again into the sleek position. Finally it fluffs in two stages and adopts its roosting position. Here it is just before putting its beak along its back.
13th October. The birdbox has been accumulating droppings. It was taken down to reset the microphone connection which had developed a fault. The bird came back at 18.05 BST (17.05 GMT) which is ten minutes before local sunset. It proceeded to do a most thorough inspection, and promptly ate one of the larger droppings, as a way of tidying up. It looks very sleek.
16th October 2000. Much activity in the morning, around 9-10.30 BST, with competition for control of the nesting/roosting box from at least two birds. It appears that the intruding bird comes in and leaves copious droppings in the box, which are removed one by one by the resident bird. The activity is accompanied by loud banging with the beak, on the resonant wood box, particularly near the entrance hole. There is no evidence that the night-time roosting resident is any different, so perhaps the intruder has been deterred.
19th October. Our bird was chased into the nest box by a starling this morning. It responded with a fine display of aggressive behviour, while the starling tried ineffectually to put its head through the nestbox hole. The bird returned frequently to claim the nestbox territory; it seems that territorial fights like this happen most frequently in the mornings. After the bird departed, the starling returned and made repeated attempts to enter the empty nest box. Of course, it can't do this as it is too large.
In the evening of 19th October, the bird arrived 8 minutes ahead of local sunset time (local sunset today at Guildford is 18:02 BST which is GMT + 1.00) and took just three minutes to adopt the "head under wing" fluffed roosting posture. The nestbox thermometer, situated immediately beneath the bird's bottom, indicated 13.3 C compared to the outside air temperature of 11.3 C. This would be a fairly reliable way of data-logging the bird's comings and goings.
20th October 2000. Again, there is multiple-bird interest in the nesting box in the morning period about 9-10am. This time, the resident bird is not behaving quite so aggressively towards the intruder; the intruder turns out to be another blue tit: and as occupation gives a significant advantage, the resident bird has no trouble in seeing off the other. There continues to be a turnover of droppings in the nestbox; perhaps a usurping bird attempts to gain control by defecating in the other bird's space.
21st October 2000. This evening was dull and wet. The bird came in 20 minutes before local sunset. Most of the night the rain rattled on the box, making a noise, and our bird slept only fitfully.
22nd October 2000. Clear skies this evening, and the bird came in at 18.01 BST or 5 minutes after local sunset. A black cat has been ambushing the squirrels who visit the nut-feeders. Later on, the cat staked out the squirrel nest in next door's garage roof. Blue tits are not ground feeders so we are not concerned that the cat may prove to be a successful predator.
24th October. At 21:30 BST, the monitor was turned on, to show a very agitated bird, suffering from itchyness or fleas. It spent 15 minutes vigorously preening itself, shaking its feathers out, and scratching along its belly and under its wings with its beak. Every so often it would try to settle down, only to be disturbed after a minutes or so by an itch requiring another bout of scratching. It looks very untidy, with feathers all over the place. We have not caught sight of a flea, though. This activity was not at all like the systematic "routine maintenance" preening that is often seen. After it finally settled down, the under-bird thermometer measured 14.3 C and the reference thermometer outside the box measured 11.5 C. This bird has a very idiosyncratic and characteristic habit of stretching out the tips of its wings in a little salute, after a preen. None of the other birds which we have observed have such a recognisable "signature" of body language.
27th October. The bird was settled by17:30 BST, so it came in at least 20 minutes before local sunset at 17:46 BST. It was a grey afternoon with mizzling rain, but not cold at 14.1 C (outside) and 18.3 C (under the bird). The box has many more droppings visible tonight. Perhaps there has been some competition for occupancy. See picture following....
28th October 2000. The bird came in from the stormy weather at 17:08 BST this evening. The rain lashed against the box, and the antenna leads, blown by the wind, made a tapping noise now and then. The bird listened intently to these assorted noises for ten minutes, then settled for the night at 17:18.
5th November 2000. Guy Fawkes day. Rain set in in the early afternoon, after the storms and floods of last weekend. During the finer weather earlier in the day a starling visited the nut feeder to provide this vivid autumn profile. It is this long beak that is seen at the entrance to the nest box from time to time.
Later in the evening, the wet bird tries to settle in the nest box.
The bird had come in out of the storm at least 40 minutes before local sunset.
12th November 2000. Remembrance Sunday. This was another weekend of rain, producing 20 mm in the gauge. The afternoon turned out fine and sunny, and our bird made good use of the respite from the rain, rushing in late at 16.35 GMT, or eighteen minutes after local sunset (very late for our bird). It stamped its feet, turned around about five times, preened itself vigorously, shook out its feathers and tapped its beak on the box wall, and was asleep inside 120 seconds of arrival.
A rectangular nut-feeder attracts many species of small birds who dive in to it and retrieve whole peanuts. Typical consumption between 8am and 4pm is around 300 grams of nuts. Here is a picture of a "diving bird".
4th December 2000. The chief bird observer has been around the planet since the last diary entry; has been within 5 metres of a soaring Royal Albatross (Northern Royal Albatross -- Monarch Wildlife Cruises, Dunedin, New Zealand) in Dunedin, NZ, and seen the only captive Kea (New Zealand's Mountain Parrot) in Australia in Mogo Zoo, NSW. There are also some other bird pictures to be posted later elsewhere on this site. Meanwhile, our resident Parus Caeruleus has kept up residency, unobserved. Today (a grey day, unlike the bright light in Braidwood http://www.braidwood.net.au/, NSW) the bird departed at 07:45 GMT and returned to roost at 16:00 GMT, having made a few visits in between to clean out the poo from the roost box. As is usual, it arrived and departed within five minutes of local sunrise/sunset. It has to roost in the cold, standing up on its feet, for nearly 16 hours. This is almost as bad as the leg from Bangkok to London on a Jumbo, for a human. Possibly worse. It was raining in NSW; there measures 94.3 mm in the rain gauge here in Guildford since the last diary entry above on the 12th November.
6th December 2000. Our intrepid bird stayed out late this evening; it has been a slightly less dark day, with even a little sunshine. Perhaps the bird optimises its feeding time. Sunrise is 7.51 am and sunset is 3.55 pm. The bird arrived at 4.12 pm which is about 17 minutes after local sunset. It has been a warm day, for the time of the year, with temperatures around 12 Celsius.
21st December 2000. Midwinter solstice. This afternoon we had a rubustious kids' party in the back garden, with eight 9-year-olds rampaging about in the back garden until after roosting time. Our bird, wisely, would have none of this and spent the night somewhere else, for the first time since 1st October. On the 22nd it came back again, on the dot, as if nothing had happened.
25th December 2000. Christmas Day. This morning it is raining, cold lumpy rain. Our bird, having been in the box for 16 hours since Christmas Eve, decides at 16 minutes before local sunrise to brave the elements. It stretches out its tail feathers, then gives a characteristic victory salute with its wing tips, and without further ado, it leaves into the cold dark wet morning rain. One can hear the pitter-patter of lumpy raindrops on the roosting box.
30th December 2000. The nights have been cold since 28th December, with lying snow and a hard frost in the morning. Accordingly, we have been experimenting by putting a few peanuts into the roosting box during the day. Our bird ignores these for the most part, but last night it took one of them out of the box, only returning after 20 minutes, well past its usual time for roosting. Overnight the temperature dropped to -4 degrees Celsius, and the bird was clearly stressed by the cold, rocking around on its feet, twitching, and shivering. This morning it woke early, did some morning gymnastics, and located a peanut in the almost-dark, which it split into two pieces, eating one of them. Immediately it seemed to have an access of energy; it fluttered up and down several times in the cold and dark to find the exit hole, and flew off into the dim morning twilight at a good 45 minutes before local sunrise.
9th January 2001. Fireworks!. Since the new year, the youngster(s) in the house have been setting off a handful of loud and spectacular fireworks, at about 8pm in the evening, just outside the bird box. Most evenings. Naturally, this causes the bird to sit up (sometimes one gets a startle reaction), but generally it is tolerating this disturbance with equanimity. Today it left at 07:25, 41 minutes before local sunrise at 08:06, and it returned at 16:15, two minutes after local sunset at 16:13. Outside, the birds are hungry at this time of the year and can demolish half a kilo of peanuts and an entire seed hopper of sunflower seed in less than two days.
10th January 2001. Body language. Below, there are two pictures in sequence, about 10 seconds apart at 03:30 today, showing our bird's idiosyncratic and unique body language. First, it preens and stretches out one wing, and then it adopts an easily recognisable vee-position for about 1/3 of a second, stretching.
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11th January 2001. Disturbances. Today there is a strong-to-gale east wind blowing. This is unusual in this part of the world, where easterlies are rarely as strong as this. The patio glass door is bowing under the wind pressure, causing the reflections in the glass to expand and contract; the house is creaking, and on the nestbox microphone we can hear the wires rattling against the roost box. Occasionally the roost box grates against the brickwork in the wind. The bird startles, looks around to see if the "noises off" are due to an intruder, and, satisfied that it is just mother nature, goes back to sleep. At 10pm, even persistent manual rattling of the hanging wires against the side of the box fails to awake or otherwise disturb the bird. We are revising our opinion of the term bird brain.
5th February 2001. For the last few days (wet ones) there has been much box-banging during the mornings at around 10:00-12:00 GMT. Today, at lunchtime, we see the first evidence of nest building interest, in the form of two small pieces of moss on the bottom of the box.
Old birdsite http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/D.Jefferies/bird/birdsite.html
Lifeforms pictures http://www.eryptick.net/lifeforms.htm
Email dj@eryptick.net
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