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Nest Box - scent markings? (1 Viewer)

Yve

Active member
This may seem a really bizarre question, but do birds (blue-tits in this case) scent mark nest sites they are interested in?
We have just got a bird box with a camera in it, and recorded the days events so we could follow what has been happening.
There have been numerous too-ings and fro-ings by a pair of blue-tits who seem quite interested in the box. One of the birds has been lying on its belly, with wings spread out, and looks like it is rubbing itself along the bottom of the box. Is he leaving a scent or is he upto something else?:h?:
We are assumong it's the male, but we have no way of working out who's who.
 
Hi YVE

Great to hear that you have a possible nesting success.

Thinking behind this wriggling on the belly is that it is
a) Checking the room is adequate
b) As nesting material is brought in you will notice that this "action" is more pronounce as it shapes the nest cup into a nice compact and correctly shaped cup.

Hope this helps.
 
Hi Yve, and the only way you can tell them apart, is the male will tend to be the brighter coloured bird. Good luck with the nesting.
 
Thanks for the info guys. I will keep you informed as to how things are going! Early days yet, but hopefully things will progress and we will have a successful brood.
 
Wish you the best of luck with your brood Yve.
We also put up a couple of home made blue tit nest boxes. I followed the instructions on the RSBP web site for dimensions and specially bought a 25mm drill bit to make a hole of the correct size. In the past 2 weeks a pair of blue tits have been pecking away at the entrance changing it from a perfectly round and smooth hole into a rough and well worn entrance.
Is this normal? We thought that this may be a way of the blue tit pair claiming "possession rights" over the box.
What do you think?

David
 
tits have no real sense of smell, similar to ours actually. So they aren't scent marking. They're merely checking it out, as they'll be checking out all holes in their territory. They wont make a final choice until they're ready to build (about 2-3 weeks, probably). They often peck at the entrance hole, maybe just to enlarge it slightly - 25mm is a bit tight for the chubbier blue tit. 26 is better.
 
Davjo said:
Wish you the best of luck with your brood Yve.
We also put up a couple of home made blue tit nest boxes. I followed the instructions on the RSBP web site for dimensions and specially bought a 25mm drill bit to make a hole of the correct size. In the past 2 weeks a pair of blue tits have been pecking away at the entrance changing it from a perfectly round and smooth hole into a rough and well worn entrance.
Is this normal? We thought that this may be a way of the blue tit pair claiming "possession rights" over the box.
What do you think?

David
Yes this is normal,luckily we have a camera monitored one so can see what is happening both inside and out I am not sure why they do this though. It seems as if you are lucky that they are thinking this might be the place for them (Take the For sale sign down ;) ).

And to go further with Yve this is also a very normal . Here is a link to two sites that you might interesting.
http://www.biggonline.co.uk/
http://www.mybitoftheplanet.com/
 
Never having seen the nesting process from the inside as it were before, it's quite fascinating and entertaining! Ours have been pecking away at the hole too, and the camera, and one is quite keen on the close up shot hanging from the ceiling. Definitely more nest material coming in now, but still a long way to go -one had a battle this morning trying to get a feather into the box.
I'll certainly have to take a look at the web sights you've mentioned - thanks!
Looking forward to seeing what they get up to tomorrow.
 
Nest making/bird feeder

Is it usual that just the female collects all the nest material and builds the nest? Allthough we can't tell them apart yet,it apears that only one of them is bringing in the nest material, the other is outside defending their territory like crazy, so we assume that ones the male.
Also, we have a bird feeder about 5 metres from the box which is popular with the other birds. Do you think this is too close and they may get put off by the amount of other birds around? :h?:
What do you think?
 
Yve said:
Is it usual that just the female collects all the nest material and builds the nest? Allthough we can't tell them apart yet,it apears that only one of them is bringing in the nest material, the other is outside defending their territory like crazy, so we assume that ones the male.
Also, we have a bird feeder about 5 metres from the box which is popular with the other birds. Do you think this is too close and they may get put off by the amount of other birds around? :h?:
What do you think?

I think not Yve, birds wanting to breed will have made note of the goings on around the site. This has never bothered the tits nesting in my garden.

The one thing that upsets them is when a blackbird sits on the roof of the nest box and decides to have a vocal session.

Chris.
 
Yve said:
Is it usual that just the female collects all the nest material and builds the nest? Allthough we can't tell them apart yet,it apears that only one of them is bringing in the nest material, the other is outside defending their territory like crazy, so we assume that ones the male.
Also, we have a bird feeder about 5 metres from the box which is popular with the other birds. Do you think this is too close and they may get put off by the amount of other birds around? :h?:
What do you think?
Our feeders are about the same distance away and we have had no problems with this, in fact I think it helped at times as they could have a "quick snack" and get food for the little ones without having to go too far - In fact out neighbour said he wasn't going to put greenfly killer on his bushes/plants just in case the BTs thought of using these for food.

The nearest thing we had to any problems with other birds was that of a starling poking its head through the hole, luckily the box is quite wide/deep and the little ones were out of harms way (they all sat still knowing this wasn't a parent coming to the hole- if you listen they seem to do a squeak to tell them they are on the way).
 
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