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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DavidJJones" data-source="post: 1417826" data-attributes="member: 1258">Be patient, and optimistic - at this stage what you are seeing is just about all you would expect to see. What do you mean by 'mostly solitary'? If the male has also been in the box, even just a couple of times then that is very promising. In my garden it is a pair of Great Tits rather than Blue Tits that are visiting, but their behaviour is very similar. The female is the one that will pop into the box just once on most days, while her partner visits only occasionally.When he does visit he is usually followed in by the female. He crouches low at the back of the box as she enters and then he leaves straight away.You'll know that they are getting serious about the box when in a couple of weeks you see the female getting down and shuffling across the floor of the box with her wings spread out, practicing the actions she uses to compact the nesting materials, even though she hasn't brought any in yet! My Starlings did their first shuffles in mid-January, and although they occasionally bring bits of straw, birch bark etc in, these inevitably get removed later.If you have Robins in the garden, watch out for what they are doing. 'My' Robins are very busy going in and out of a nest box at the moment, so it looks as though they are making a start.</blockquote>