looduskalender.ee

From what I have read, a nest of this kind might very well be useful for a hawfinch couple.High up in this kind of tree and a large nest.
I believe however it might be a little late in the season, and the precense of the buzzard egg to irritating.

June 13th
good morning
the hawfinches have been busy this morning again. from Pontu pictures the female i think
at 4.15 .......................................... 4.16 :
..

at 6.31 the female again:

.... continued....
at 6.37 she stayed long, part of the time on the front branch so that only the top of the head was captured by the live camera....


... but for Pontu camera the pose was perfect!
here it can bee seen that the beak is BIG in all directions.
.... .. .except the tip which looks nail-sharp.

at 6.46 the female was accompanied by the male.

.... continued...
at 6.46 the female came again and a bit later was accompanied by the male.
picasion.com


now there's some interference by nginx again. it throws me out of LK pages and refuses me to get back there...

... well this time i got back.

.... continued .....
at 7.08 the female was there again. she seems to be collecting somethings which are thin and long and she seems to be finding those things quite near or even under the egg. she seems not to be interested in the egg at all.


at 8.19 they both arrived. it seemed that the male was courting the female: he followed her with his wings opened halfway and he chattered to her.
picasion

http://picasion.com

...

EDIT: i later discovered that the male hawfinch slipped through the Pontu camera's "fingers" totally at the last visit. therefore i think it is likely that the female has had the male as her company also on at least some of her visits at the nest earlier in the morning. he just moves around quicker than the female who seems to take her time looking around... she's not in a hurry.

All about the Hawfinch,including courting behavior (which ame may have seen today );

http://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-hawfinch.html

A bird very difficult to observe... etc;

ame Is the Hawfinch eating insects in the nest,maybe seeds as well..

Thank you for the videos and the 'active' pics too.

June 14th
good morning
Mrs Hawfinch visited the nest again at 4.42. maybe it is looking for food of some sort but it's impossible to see what it may find there. i have seen it pulling some sort of thin and long twigs or plant fibres up. today i heard it snap its beak.


thank you macdoum for the info page about hawfinches.
there was one thing which needs clarification. it says there that the distribution area of hawfinches covers Europe (and parts of Asia), but in fact only the Southernmost areas of Scandinavia and Finland are included in the distribution area. in Finland hawfinch is rare: the estimated population is only few hundreds pairs, but it has been increasing lately. -so the hawfinches have been as exotic to me as the nuthatches have been.
this is a funny nest camera: it always offers so many surprises.

bjorn wrote that it's late season already. i think that the hawfinches may be preparing for a second clutch this season. the incubation lasts about 2 weeks and nestling time, too. after that the parents feed the chicks still about two weeks. then they have plenty of time for a second clutch.

at 5.40 a bluetit came to investicate the nest. it seemed to be picking downy feathers there: in the end it had a nice big white bunch of them in its beak. another bluetit came, too, and it got a big juicy caterpillar which it came to show to the camera.


http://picasion.com


again only one bluetit could be seen in the Pontu pictures, so it was a nice surprice to find the second tit on the video. i think the first tit was a female who was collecting nest material for her second clutch, too. the tit with the caterpillar seemed to have a brighter blue cap so i think it was Mr Bluetit. it is the season of second clutches.
(at home i have gathered combed cat's wool an put it out in the garden in a bird feeder-rack so that birds can come and take it for nest material. a couple of days ago i happened to see how a very ragged looking coaltit picked a big bunch of that wool. the tit was like a big family's mommy in dressing gown and slippers and curlers in the hair. )

June 15th
good morning
this morning a bluetit visited the nest at 5.35. the Pontu picture is not very clear but it's more likely to be rather a blue than a great tit.

http://pontu.eenet.ee/saunja/2012-06-15 ... -05-35.jpg

at 6.06 two nuthatches searhed for food around the nest. in the clip there's only one nuthatch at a time but the Pontu picture reveals that there were two of them.

http://pontu.eenet.ee/saunja/2012-06-15 ... -06-06.jpg

then i noticed that some sticks had moved between two Pontu pictures.
picasion.com

there was no wind so some animal had to be the reason for it so i checked the video. there had been two birds, not just one!
first a male chaffinch was in the back of the nest on the big branches so it did not move the sticks in the front.


picasion

right after the chaffinch The Little Grey Bird came to the nest and jumped and hopped through it so it was the one who moved the sticks. gotch'ya!
http://picasion.com

just as was writing that i saw that the Little Grey Bird had returned to collect some downy feathers from the nest. the video was not good, VLC was making bright colours. i restarted and then the female hawfinch came to the nest, too! the little bird thought it was best to give way to the much bigger hawfinch who looked around the nest. it seemed to pick up some long thin twigs...


after the hawfinch left the Little Grey Bird came back to finish what it had been doing before it was interrupted.
...

ame,I looked up the distribution of The Hawfinch:

http://www.sovon.nl/ebcc/eoa/default.as ... &species4=

We are learning all the time.

June 16th
good morning!

thank you macdoum for the distribution map!
no big surprises this morning (and therefore not much new to learn): a bluetit and two Little Birds (i'm not even sure of the colour of the other of them). one mystery though: a strange roar from the forest. could it be a roe deer?
it was at 4.35.


at 5.38 the little bird of undetermined colour came to the backbranch. there was a garden warbler singing at the same time and i first thougth that the singer could be this bird on the branch... but no: the bird on the branch was preening itself and the song went on. i don't think they could do both at the same time.

the bluetit visited the nest three times. it was collecting downy feathers in big bunches. second nest under construction....
at 7.41


at 7.48


at 7.50

at 8.27 the Little Grey bird came to the nest and moved around it seemingly with no particular purpose. it was just kind of wandering about...
in the beginning i think there was also a butterfly on the right front side of the nest and the bird went gradually to it and pecked once there-about, but i couldn't see whether the bird actually ate the butterfly... then the bird just went on around...

BTW: yesterday evening i saw something hovering just in front of the lens for a few seconds and then it hovered a little further above the nest. i then realised that it was a butterfly who peeked inside the camera! -it was too late to anything to capture it in any way, because the recording wasn't on...
i feel like a fisher who lays the nets and other fishtraps in the evening and then goes out in the morning to collect catch in the morning. it's always a surprise to see what's there if anything.
that was the catch from this morning!

June 17th
good morning !
a pine marten took the egg.




finally it's gone. i had already that no-one would take it.

Hey, stupid marten! What will you do with this old and probably rotten egg(it kept without a fridge)? Poison yourself or your kids!

maybe the same pine marten from a few weeks ago ?
He or she has taking his chance.
nice catch ame