Nesting time

There has been a lot of nesting activity in the last few days...

The red kites are definitely working on their nest in my parents garden. Some baler twine has already appeared next to the nest and they've started dropping tissues and kitchen roll in the garden (a favourite lining material for them). They'll put some much stranger things in there before they're finished though (plastic bags and socks usually). This was taken out of my parents kitchen window and shows the male, Kenny, sat on the edge of the nest.

Back at our house, the sparrows line up along the gutter every morning to wave the kids off to school and at least one of them always seems to have a beak full of twigs and grass. They seem to be making their nests in the gutters or up under the eaves again this year.

Waving the kids off to school



"Is this bit big enough?"

This morning we watched a big crow yank a big stick off a tree in the garden, then fly off with it. The stick was almost as big as the bird, so I'm amazed it could still fly.

The blue tits have been in and out of the bird box under the bird table. They seem a bit worried about the hole and have been chipping away at it. In fact they've been getting quite cross with it and were really giving it the woodpecker head banger treatment. They are very careful with any wood they chip off though and always make sure it goes outside of the box. I wasn't sure whether they had actually started nesting yet, but today they took in lots of nesting material, so I guess the nest is in progress.

They've been biting at the hole

Banging away at the hole

Biting the hole from the inside as well

I wonder if he's happy with the hole yet? You can see where they've chipped
away at the edges

Nesting material has been going in

Rumour has it that I may be getting a bird box with a built in camera for my birthday on Friday! Now that's exciting!!