Snagging is a term used, in the building trade, in connection with the inspection that takes place by the new home buyer with the builder. It is a time to check the property for faults etc prior to occupancy. Gosh is this Blue Tit good!
Blue tit checks quality of nestbox, video 0:23 without background music, try 480p quality.
Turn up the volume, on your speakers, and you will be able to hear the very definite pecking this Blue Tit is doing on the walls and floor of our new Camera Nestbox. My theory is that it is checking them out thoroughly – to see if they are of the quality that a Blue Tit expects of a garden Nestbox! I am hoping our box will pass the inspection for it and its partner. They visited together again today – just before the inspection above took place.
Making an entrance to its liking is also what the Blue Tit was doing towards the end of the video, shown above, by pecking at it too. There is definitely much more to the preparations for nest building than I expected. I wonder if this pair is checking out other Nestboxes at the same time as ours. Our first sighting of this pair was on the 3rd of March. I wonder how long it takes from the initial inspection until the first piece of nesting material is brought in. We will find out soon enough – perhaps changes in temperatures guide the birds and I suspect we are yet to feel winter’s bite.
The video, shown above, was taken in my garden on March 11th 2007.
Wow Shirl, I really like the footage of the Blue tit. It is so nice to see them up close. My guess is that nest building, or rearing a brood, is timed with the increase in number of insects as well as the change of climate.
BTW, love your blog and found your site from researching nest box cameras from here. Keep up the good work.
Hello Simon,
Thank-you, that particular footage was great fun to edit. I couldn’t resist the title either. The camera Nestbox is a great opportunity to see the Blue Tit up close but incredibly when you saw the female outside at the feeders and on the ground she was absolutely tiny!
You are quite correct about the timing and sadly it did not work out for our Blue Tit pair and many others this year. You can read the whole story if you go to the label Camera Nestbox 2007. It was sad to watch at the end.
Thank-you, I am thoroughly enjoying the journey this blog is taking me. It is very interesting to me to hear how visitors find my blog – I find the whole search thing quite fascinating.
He should be given a job as a snagging inspector! Perhaps new homes would have fewer snags if we made better use of Blue Tits :~) See snagging.org to see the scale of the problem.
He should be given a job as a snagging inspector! Perhaps new homes would have fewer snags if we made better use of Blue Tits :~) See snagging.org to see the scale of the problem.