Visit Statistics

I have a partial result in terms of visit-statistics and have posted two plots here.
The first plot depicts the number of visits made by each species on a particular day. The second plot depicts the number of visits made one or more Eurasian Tree Sparrow(s) per hour each day (the images can be enlarged by clicking on them).

Obvious is the increase subsequent to the beginning of nesting (09.03.2010) and well that since nesting, the other two bird species have visited less frequently if not at all. Visits made by the Sparrow after the midday day hours were all made post 9th of March, i.e. beginning of nesting (I defined this as the date on which the Sparrow brought the first twigs in the box, "heavy" nesting actually began on the 15th of March)

Blue Tit Frequencies

It is taking me longer than expected to complete the statistics regarding the number of visits per day per species, so I have decided to post a frequency analysis of the blue tit's chirping, as expected the peak frequencies are higher than both the Sparrow and Great Tit.



A skeptic asked me how reliable the frequencies are that I have posted...in reply I have examined two different chirpings (in which of course the bird is doing more or less the same thing) of the blue tit and have plotted them in the graph below. I think one can say that one plot is fairly representative, given of course that I am mostly interested in a qualitative analysis rather than a quantitative one. So unless specifically requested I shall not (at least not in the near future, though it might be quite interesting) indulge in a frequency-spectrum spreading.



Also interesting is the comparison between the results obtained from a single chirp (1 and 3) and those obtained for a longer period of time (4) as certain frequencies develop narrow peaks.

Successfull Display?

Despite yesterday's Kamin Day, the nesting box was visited. A Eurasian Tree Sparrow entered box a couple of times during the mid-morning.

I have the feeling that this was not our now familiar constructer but a meticulous inspector. I am wondering if it was a female that inspected the box.

You may judge for yourself by looking at the video below…and let me know what you think!

Frequency Spectra: Sparrow vs. Great Tit

As promised I fed the audio files of the two displays (dated 2010.03.12 and 2010.03.13) to audacity to compare the frequencies used by the two different species (Eurasian Tree Sparrow and Great Tit). As expected there are clear differences. The figure below (click to enlarge) depicts frequencies and normalised dB levels (to remove the dependency on microphone settings). The images below the plot (colour coded for the two birds: blue = Sparrow, read = Great Tit) are the waveforms.



Also interesting is the comparison between the chirping frequencies during the display and during "nesting" as I call it. Below is a plot comparing these for the Eurasian Tree Sparrow (12.03.2010 = Display; 17.03.2010 = Nesting)



It appears that during the display, the male bird does add colour to its singing by increasing the relative importance of the higher frequencies. Unfortunately, I do not have nesting sounds from the Great Tit, so I cannot perform a direct comparison. I will thus have to look this up to see if I can find any backing.

2010.03.17 Eurasian Tree Sparrow Nesting

..some more nesting...

Kamin-Day

Yesterday the Sparrow continued working on the nest. I did not see any other birds visiting the nesting box, but I will have another look.

Today is Kamin-Day. I know this sounds, ehrm odd, but it is a long story, and a long story needs a title.

Late last year our landlord called us up and asked us if we were interested in having a stove in the flat. He told us that he was quite keen on having one installed but that he of course wanted our consent. After some hesitation, we decided that it would be nice to have a stove especially as the winter was coming up and it looked like it was not going to be a mild one. We called our landlord, told him that we were happy with having a stove and he made an appointment to have the people that were going to install it come along and have a look at the flat. Everything went smoothly and an appointment was made for the actual installation which was to be early in Jan. 2010. January came and it brought snow, I don't think I really have to mention it, but well January did not just bring snow, it brought masses and masses and tonnes of snow. The appointment was cancelled. The snow melted, the appointment was set again. It snowed. Needless to say, that this went on for well lets say, a couple of times.

So now here we are, I am sitting at home, waiting for the technicians to come along. It is March the 17th and Mr. Hardcore-Winter is basically over...ah but we get a stove now...so well I kind of hopes it snows again.

Obviously there will be much going on today. A hole must be made in the external wall of the house which faces the garden. I hope (ok, euphemism, I am rather worried) that the birds will not be too put-off by the chaos and if they do not pay a visit today, I hope the Sparrow will continue nest-building tomorrow. The camera is on, so we shall see what happens today!

I will be doing some video cutting today as I have to sit around and wait for them to finish, so I will have some videos for you of yesterday's activities later today....so as usual, stay tuned!!

...Here comes the van...

Construction Continues...(at Great Tit's Disappointment ?)

The Eurasian Tree Sparrow again spent considerable time yesterday constructing the nest. I have not counted yet, but it appears that it has made more than 10 visits during the day, and not just in the morning, but also in the afternoon. This is in fact the first time it has visited the nesting box after the midday hours.
Funnily enough, a Great Tit visited the nest in the afternoon (no Great Tits had been in the nesting box since the weekend). The bird appears puzzled at first. Indeed the nest has changed a great deal since Sunday!

Unfortunately, the sound cable was not properly plugged in so I had no audio yesterday. I have posted a video sequence of a number of yesterday's visits. You can however tell from the video that the both birds did a "mini" display (not comparable to the ones I posted on the weekend).

Eurasian Tree Sparrow "Nesting"

After the numerous displays of the past three days of the Great Tit, I was seriously convinced that a Great Tit would be using the nest soon. I suddenly changed my mind when I arrived home late last night and looked at the monitor....

I have created a montage of a series images of the nesting box showing how the nest evolved during the morning (again the image can be enlarged by clicking on it). It is not hard to guess who has been working on it! So unless the Great Tit starts removing everything it now looks like the Sparrow has claimed ownership of the nesting box.



I will try and post a video sequence later today!

Recording Equipment/Nesting Box

Some of you might be interested in the equipment I am using and how I assembled the black/white IR camera.



Here are two images of the nesting box and the hole I made in it to install the camera in its casing.



For those of you who are really interested...here is a list of the technical details of the camera (190800 - 62).

Description: 8,47 mm (1/3") CCD B/W-Camera with a 6 mm Lens
Voltage: 12 V/DC
Resolution: 297 984 Pixel
Current: 250 mA
Resolution (Lines): 380 Zeilen
Optical Resolution: 512 x 582 Pixel
Light Sensitivity: 0,01 lx
Aperture Settings: Yes
IR-Light: Yes
Integrated Optical Zoom: No
Integrated Microphone: Yes
Dimensions: (L x W x H) 55 x 38 x 25 mm

Eurasian Tree Sparrow Display

I have already posted a portion of this video, but this one is of much better quality...

Great Tit Display

fantastic display...

Last Year's Egg

As mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I found a small egg in the old nesting box whilst transferring the nest from the latter to the new box which is now in use....I thought you might want to see what it looks like...

To give you a rough idea as to its size...the egg fits into the golden core of a 2 Euro coin!