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Bird Boxes project - Diary
pages - 24th February 2008
How time has flown! Welcome back and to the 2008 season. Next Saturday (1st March) sees the start of the bird boxes surveys.
Over the last few weeks I have been busy, making sure all the boxes are numbered and that they are all plotted on maps ready for the surveys to start.
Sunday 24th February saw myself, armed with a GPS, going around all the boxes in Zone 1 (Lower Fullingpits Woods), making notes of their locations and plotting them on a map. Whilst going around I observed many pairs of Blue Tits and Great Tits checking out the boxes as a potential home for this nesting season.
The wood contains many old Dormouse boxes and these have been used as nestboxes, by Blue Tits in the past. Whilst I was writing down the grid reference for one of these boxes I saw a Blue Tit fly across from the trees and enter the box. It was nearly dark and the bird never left the box, so it roosted (slept) in the box overnight.
One of the other Dormouse boxes had signs that the enterance hole had been damaged by something. I had a careful quick look inside and discovered feathers inside (see photo below)
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The feathers inside one of the Dormouse boxes |
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These feathers are not nesting material but are the main pin (wing) feathers of a Great Tit. During fights over ownership of a box birds can loose a few of these feathers, but there were more than just a few. Has a bird sadly been killed? I sadly can not tell and hope not.
More in the next diary update, on Saturday 1st March 2008.
Ben Kirby
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