Avian testosterone?

[Eric The Viking]

So he makes all the effort building it; she hangs about looking decorative and occasionally giving him come-hither looks...
... and just this morning, when he's done all the hard work (see below), another bloke turns up, flexes his biceps, says, "Hey girl, how about it?"* and then it's "fight; fight; FIGHT!". Tough old world out there if you're a Blue-tit.















You can tell he's young and daft: he was going to the far end of our (tiny) garden, and tugging away like crazy at the grass and moss on the "lawn".

I took pity on him on Tuesday and raked up a pile of moss and clippings to make things easier. That's where the pics were taken. But he took exception to something and has since gone back to pulling up his own - so much so you can actually see where he's been doing it (the "lawn" is pretty threadbare).

But the really daft thing is that I put the small pile in the end that gets the sunshine, so that it dried. And that end of the lawn is closer to the nestbox, too. But he prefers his moss sopping wet, and does most of the grass collecting in the early morning, before even the dew has come off it.

I bet she'll be complaining about the lack of central heating shortly...

E.

*Knopfler was spot-on!

 

[xy mosian]

Absolutely delightful Eric. Tremendous images.
xy

 

[AndyT]

Lovely! "Working from home" is a very civilised option, isn't it!

I don't suppose you've got a camera fitted inside that rather upmarket nesting box so we can see the result of all this exhibitionism in a few weeks time?

 

[Eric The Viking]

Nah, I wish. But you've sat in our back garden - cabling it would be "interesting" I fear.

It was a Christmas present, and it's temporarily replacing an older box that was taken over by European Tree Bees two summers ago. They don't return to the same nest site, and I was disappointed the Blue-**** didn't use it last year. But when I took it down, I found that the bees' nest filled up most of the upper part of the box - the old nest was quite undisturbed underneath. In the Autumn, I intend to clean it and replace it up there (and put the 'bijou' one somewhere else).

But I do have Cat5 going into the garage/workshop, so that's a possibility if I do get round to a camera, etc. But it's too far away for decent close-ups of the exterior, as I only have a 300mm lens at the moment.

Canon photographic gear is stupidly expensive, IMHO and the lens performance is, er, average really. But I'm lucky to have it, so not complaining, though I probably won't be adding more lenses to my kit any time soon.

That said, I can fit Pentax lenses with an adaptor ring and some limitations. I do this for specialist work. And I do have an old Sigma 400 f/5.6 somewhere...

 

[Racers]

I fitted a wireless on to the Mahogany nest box I made for my mother, the range isn't great, I had to run coax from the receiver round the kitchen and through the living room to get a decent picture (bit of a colour cast). Lucky we could get power to the camera.

Pete

 

[Eric The Viking]

Yup. If I do it I'll probably be PoE, as that works well for the WiFi AP in the house. Like so many things, getting the time is the thing.

I get to know when they'll be at the nestbox (e.g. over breakfast, etc.), and it's relatively easy to have the camera set up ready. Catching the right moment is another matter though as they're bloomin' quick little things. And digital cameras have a flipping huge delay on the shutter release, so you have to anticipate rather a lot. At least you no longer waste film

 

[Harbo]

Can't you do burst shots - my Canon does?

Rod

 

[Eric The Viking]

Those are (burst).

My Canon is a 6D - it's a lot better than the 30D I used to use (now pensioned-off), but even with mirror lock-up it's horribly slow, and does about 4fps. The lag with a shutter press is around 0.3-0.4 sec. Blue-**** are so quick you can't react fast enough to a visual trigger, so you have to guess what the bird will do, e.g. take-off.

Last time I tried, with the old body, admittedly, I wasted hours trying to catch take-off from the perch. The thing would exit the box and be airborne faster than my reaction time+the camera's lag: dozens of frames of a static bird-box (and no bird) resulted...

Which leads me to the other issue with the 6D - max shutter speed is 1/4000. I didn't realise it was that slow, until after it arrived! I just fired up the 30D to check: 1/8000, which is a lot more like it for small birds. The blur in some of the above images (usually) isn't focus nor shake, it's the bird moving. I may try again with auto ISO, as the older body didn't have that in any helpful sense. I run Magic Lantern on the 6D and that lets me do all sorts of nice things, including motion detection triggering.

E.

PS: The mouse in my avatar was done on the 30D, but in poor daylight. I only got the shot because the seed was hard for it to reach, and it had to stay reasonably still to gnaw at it. I'd do far better with the 6D, but don't want to encourage them again, just in case (very close to the house!). I hate setting mousetraps, and if we had a cat we'd have no blue-****...

 

[TFrench]

"Hey girl, how about it?"*
*Knopfler was spot-on!

Just so you know, I appreciated that one!

Great pics too.

 

[Racers]

[Nerd mode on] its "Says something like you and me babe how about it?" [nerd mode off]

:wink:

Pete

 

[Eric The Viking]

Oh c'meon: I hadn't had my second pint of coffee this morning!

But you're right, I think.

 

[Racers]

Spinning it on the Roksan Xerxes right now.

Pete

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I know from keeping poultry that their nests are always humid - if the hen gets a chance to bath when the nest is dry she will, and go back to sit with damp plumage. The shells become too hard for the emerging chicks to break if they are too dry. Maybe that's why they're choosy?

 

[Bm101]

Excellent, thanks Eric.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I know from keeping poultry that their nests are always humid - if the hen gets a chance to bath when the nest is dry she will, and go back to sit with damp plumage. The shells become too hard for the emerging chicks to break if they are too dry. Maybe that's why they're choosy?

Good pointPhil. I used to breed budgies as a child, and we successfully incubated and hand reared them (not easy though!). Moisture was important otherwise the eggs dried out.