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The blue tit decides to spend a night in the box. It has not been around much in the last few days so fingers crossed it will stick around a bit!

This is quite a short clip as it’s only really sleeping, although you do see it fidget a little and tuck it’s head under it’s wing for a little shut eye!

Apologies for the poor sound quality in the first half of this video.

Our blue tit was hard at work this morning doing some serious nest building. For the first time it looked like the bird was creating the hole in the nest in prepation for the eggs. You can see it doing this by burrowing its head and shifting around in the bottom right corner of the picture.

In the afternoon I setup my DV camera to capture some video of the front of the box. After about 3 hours of on and off waiting, the bird reappeared and gave me some great shots!

It’s time for a camera bag upgrade. My current bag is the Lowepro Orion II which I got almost two years ago for subscribing to Practical Photography magazine. It’s an excellent bag comprising of a section at the bottom for my DSLR and lenses and a very roomy top section which houses my many gadgets and their associated cables and chargers!

The main reason for upgrading is the layout of the camera section of the bag. The DSLR and attached lens is right at the bottom of the bag which does not allow for much protection of the camera when you set the bag down. Many a time I have had to work my finger nail around the underneath of the lens cap to prize it away from where it has wedged itself inside the lens filter.

The bag I decided on is the ‘Lowepro Fastpack 200′ which addresses the issue explained above by housing the camera towards the centre of the bag (see image). It also allows for easy side entry access to my camera. The specification on the Lowepro website describes room for “1 DSLR with mid-range zoom lens attached, plus 1-2 extra lens or flash units, audio player and lots of room for personal gear”. This is ideal for me as I have two extra lenses aside from the one attached plus plenty of “personal gear”.

I bought it from Amazon for £51.85 which is quite a bit cheaper than my preferred supplier, Warehouse Express. It arrives this week, in time for our trip to the Lake District where I intend to put it through its paces!

The Lowepro Fastpack 200 at Lowepro.com

This will hopefully be the first of a series of videos captured from the Blue Tit nesting box in our back garden.

The box is fitted with a wireless camera which transmits the pictures to a receiver indoors connected to my laptop using the KWorld USB2800D video capture device. I then edit the final video in Adobe Premiere and upload to Viddler ready for hosting.

The Blue Tit has been making it’s nest for a few weeks now but has not spent many nights inside the box, presumably in favour of searching for a suitable mate! This time last year a blue tit had completed it’s nest and was sleeping full time in the box, so we are hoping this little fellow will start to settle down quite soon!

I will continue to post more “BirdCam” videos throughout the spring.