Blue Tits and Commando Cats

Amongst many other lovely presents I received for my recent birthday I was given a couple of great gadgets.
The first was a nest-box fitted with a camera and I wasted no time in getting this installed in a tree in my garden and wired back to my computer:



Nest-box with Internal Camera

I had to modify the box slightly so that it had a smaller entry hole and a small perch, ideal for Blue Tits. No sooner had I installed this des-res in the tree and we had our first interested party, who gave the box a thorough examination:

This Blue Tit and her mate checked out the box several times over the next few days before finally deciding this was the place for them.
Over the following couple of weeks the female Blue Tit started to bring in nesting material and built a nest lining it with moss and feathers. The week after that she started to lay eggs, all of this captured on camera in both video and still photographs.
From the still photographs I compiled a time-lapsed movie of the nest building process as follows:

She laid her eggs at a rate of one per day for a period of ten days!!

Ten Eggs in Ten Days

A Well-earned Rest

She is currently sitting on the nest incubating these eggs and has been doing so for over a week; so hopefully we will have ten chicks to look forward to within the next week or so.
What a great gadget this has been, giving a tremendous insight in to the lives of Blue Tits.

The other gadget I got for my birthday was something I have always wanted...........a Trail Cam (aka a Camera Trap) and I have been trialling this trail cam in my garden.
The camera is activated by the movement of animals and can be set to take still photographs or short videos. I also like the option it has to be able to take several photos in quick succession; as demonstrated in this sequence showing a Goldfinch and Greenfinch doing battle over the rights to the bird feeder:

The Goldfinch won on this occasion, but it soon got chased off by the feisty Blue Tits who were defending their territory from the nearby tree.
As well as good quality photographs the video images are pretty good as well; here is one of a Blackbird in the garden:

However where this Camera Trap is really impressive is in its ability to capture night-time videos; aptly demonstrated by this cat trying to catch a mouse hiding under our wheelie bin:

Thankfully the cat failed to catch the mouse, which run and hid under our shed.
We do get a lot of cats in our garden at night, but they are not the only animals caught on camera at night:

It visits our garden quite often this Hedgehog and roots around looking for worms, it is definitely not camera shy:

Unfortunately the most impressive night-time video so far is...................the Commando Cat...........which not only scales the fence with ease, but stops to check the old Blue Tit nest box for a snack on the way:

Just as well the new Blue Tit nest-box is higher up the tree, otherwise we may capture some unwanted footage on our bird-box camera.
I'm sure there will be more to come from these two wonderful gadgets

Take Care (and watch out for Commando Cats)

Teddyedward