A Chirpy Post

As we come to terms with our recent loss I’m going to try and lighten things up a little around here by posting a cheerier post...

Five years ago Mrs. Jones gave me a Wired Bird Box Camera System for Christmas comprising of a pine nesting box with inbuilt colour night vision camera that one hooked up to the TV allowing us to watch nesting birds in the comfort of our own living room! As we approached the nesting season I decided to not bother with the battery system and so acquired great length of cable and attached it to a power supply and attached the box to the side of our home following all of the RSPB’s guidelines “two to four metres up a tree or a wall” “face the box between north and east, avoiding strong sunlight and the wettest winds” clear flight paths and not too close to feeding spots.... nothing, each time we tuned into our nest cam channel we would just see the occasional spider (if we were lucky!) and this was how it was for two years. 

On the third year I decided to have the bird box face north directly... nothing. We had effectively given up on it, occasionally toying with the idea of unhooking it and relocating it to another part of the house. We have an abundance of bird life here, House Sparrows, Chaffinches, Green Finches, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Gold Finches, Robins and Siskins. They clearly appreciated the food we provided but didn’t seem to want to live here! 

Last December I attached a RSPB Window Bird Feeder to the studio window and before long I had pair of Blue Tits visit daily. An all too familiar “foomp” and I would look up from painting to see one (or both) in the window eating the peanuts or meal-worms provided, and their visits were always a welcome sight.

Then in May they seem to be visiting more often and on the 22^nd of May I noticed that they seemed to be ‘hanging around’ a lot and so following a hunch I tuned in our bird-cam and to our absolute surprise and delight there was a nest with seven chicks in it! And for two joyful weeks Mrs Jones and I watched our family of Blue Tits thrive, we would sit in the living room cup of tea in hand and watch these small birds whoosh past the window before appearing like eagles on a large 28” screen feeding their chicks the live mealworms we provided them, both parents did us proud in the number of feeds and the way they maintained the nest. We learned a lot about this species as we watched them get bigger and fluffier and their eyes open and then on the 5^th of June we thought they were going to fledge!

False alarm! We left them to it, but when we got up the next day they were gone! We must have missed them by an hour or so! We went outside to look out for them, nothing BUT on the 12^th of this month I heard several chirps coming from the tree and there they were! Still being fed by the parents (who still made full use of our bird tables!) and I can report that as I write this I can still hear them out there! They really have been a joy to us and we hope they will stick around for years to come!         

© Arfon Jones 2018. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.