Nightingales return to our woodland!

Nightingales love coppice with a couple of years' growth, as it gives the thick, bushy foliage they like for nesting. They'd not been seen for some years in our woods, so we were delighted to see one in Sweep Wood yesterday, in an area we coppiced just voer two years ago! Here's a video of it singing - you can't see it, but at least you can hear its song.

Looking down the path from the top of the hill there is really great right now:

Mike

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Nesting Great Tits, a singing Robin and a foraging Blackbird

The highlight of this weekend was on Saturday, when we found a family of Great Tits using the nesting box we'd put up in late February. The disappointment was going back on Sunday with the camera tripod to try and get some better pictures and finding that the youngsters had all left the nest! We weren't too surprised though, as looking back at the pictures it was clear that the chicks already had all their feathers - here's one poking his head out of the box:
and here's a parent checking it's safe before revealing the location of the nest (though the box kind of gives it away to humans...):
Baby says "hurry up with my food!":
And here it is in four quick photos: arrive, in, out, and away:And if you'd rather see it in video...


While I was waiting to get video of the Great Tits, I also got a little bit of a blackbird foraging:


These weren't the only birds in the wood though. Our little friendly Robin (we call him Rob, predictably) was guarding our camp as usual:
But he was very obliging and also sang for us:
here's a video of him alternately singing and preening:


Last but not least, we saw where a woodpecker has been working at a dead branch in an oak near the entrance to our wood (this is why dead wood up a tree is important!):As you can see, they're not big enough holes to nest in yet, but we'll see how they develop over the years...

Mike

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Cockatiels looking for trouble

I thought I'd share this video I took today of our cockatiels, looking for trouble on the table. They're busying trying to chew the place mats to pieces, but it's taking a while as they're quite tough. Tom likes to copy everything Pete does - in this video he follows Pete around while he's singing, and even goes to have a poo off the edge of the table at the exact same spot Pete did a few seconds earlier!

My parents and my brother and his family are in Rye this week, so we'll all be heading up to the wood tomorrow.

Mike

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Cockatiels that think they're eagles...

Cockatiels like to "display", either to attract attention (i.e. from a potential mate), assert dominance or make themselves look scary when they're threatened - ours often do it when they see larger birds out the window. When we first got Pete (with the yellow face) he made a chattering noise while displaying, but we trained him to say "eagle" instead, and when we got Tom (with the white face) he learned it from Pete very quickly. Here they are doing it (the video is in HQ mode, so pause it and let it load for a while before playing):



Back to woodland stuff in the next post...

Mike

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Pete sings to Tracy's eye

Pete often likes to step up on a finger when he's singing, and if you bring him close he'll sing into your eye. We think he likes the echo!



Mike

p.s. it's raining today, we we're not up at the wood...

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