After losing my chiffchaff nest last week to rat predators last weekend, I decided to move the camera across to a blackbird nest that had been built on the edge of my garage port. The female has built right up in the corner, under a lot of ivy, in quite a secure place. When she flew off, I held my phone up and took a picture inside the nest. She is sitting on 5 eggs! She is not worried about me going in and out of the garage port as I am storing all my stuff for Gardeners’ World Live in there. In fact, when I had the camera ready, I quietly set up the ladder ready to screw it into place expecting her to fly off. She didn’t! I actually positioned the camera, with her watching me the whole time!
This is the third blackbird nest I have set a camera on this spring. The other two were built and then abandoned before lay. I hope this one is successful because the image is quite nice, although using IR as it is dark under there. I was rather she was in the dark and protected though!
The camera is now on my live stream during the day and I think she has been incubating for about a week, so another week and hopefully we will see some new babies.
Here is the first clip I have captured of this nest: