Blue Tit roosting in nest box - need advice (1 Viewer)

[Player701]

Observed yet another conflict between the same two Blue Tits yesterday. One of them - surprisingly, it was the female this time - had already fluffed itself up and gone to sleep by the time the second bird (the presumable male) showed up, which resulted in an actual fight!



Video:

I'm still not sure why they'd fight like this - in case they are indeed a male and a female, of course. I could very well be wrong, and they might be both females or both males. But the latter is highly unlikely because I've seen one of them bring twigs in there, and isn't it always the female who brings in nest material?

Speaking of that, all construction activity has pretty much stopped dead in its tracks since last weekend due to a sudden cold spell - temperatures dropped below 0 °C again, and are going to stay there for a few more days. When it gets warmer again, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

 

[Player701]

For some reason, the blue tits have not roosted in the box the for the last several nights. One of them still comes in the evening as usual (most of the time it's the female), fluffs itself up and even actually goes to sleep, but after a while it suddenly wakes up and leaves.

Perhaps it could be because they're trying to avoid attracting excessive attention - they seem to have gotten quite serious about nest-building lately. The female has already brought in a lot of straws, twigs, and moss.



Despite the weather still being on the colder side (between +5 and +10 °C), nest construction activity has increased significantly in the recent days. I'm expecting it to speed up even more as we move from late March into early April.

For anyone who might be interested in what the birds are doing now, I've set up a live stream on YouTube. If it says below that the stream has ended, try using this link instead - if the stream is currently up, it should redirect you to it; if not, try again in maybe an hour or so.

Let's hope their efforts will eventually bear fruit, and big thanks to everyone who has participated in this thread.