This video says about itself:
Video from a blue tit box nest camera and some outside showing the 44 days from laying the first egg, feeding the chicks through to 8 fledged birds (from 11 eggs).
From Wildlife Extra:
Blue tits set up home in ashtray
Birds removed old cigarette butts
May 2010: Wildlife Extra has this week been told of not one, but two blue tit families setting up home in company ashtrays. In both cases, the ingenious birds have turned a metal, wall-mounted metal-box ashtray into the perfect nest site.
Staff at environmental monitoring company YSI Hydrodata in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, first noticed their enterprising guests after cigarette butts began to appear over the floor. Signs were put up asking smokers not to use the box, which had been filled with moss and twigs by the bird for her eggs to hatch inside.
Andrew Burton’s YSI’s Service Manager said: ‘We were confused by all of the cigarette butts that suddenly appeared on the floor a few metres from the ashtray and it seems these were removed by the blue tits prior to setting up their nest.
‘There are now around seven or eight chicks inside the ashtray and we hope they have an enjoyable stay in their unconventional home.’
Meanwhile in Wallsend, Tyne & Wear, another blue tit couple have made their home at the outside ashtray at Oceana Business Park.
‘I was delighted to hear about the arrival of our newest tenants,’ said Tony Mann, managing director of The Oceana Group. ‘The surrounding greenery and wildlife plays an essential role in the harmonious running of the site.
‘We have a groundsman who keeps Oceana in a pristine condition; and bird tables and friendly feeding areas have been installed. It all adds to the overall ambience of this beautiful heritage location.’
If there’s no trees and no nest boxes then why not an ashtray?
The RSPB’s wildlife officer Lee Hollingsworth said that although the blue tits’ homes sounded odd, using an ashtray as a nest was neither as unusual nor as ridiculous as it might at first appear.
‘If you think about it, a metal-box ashtray is very similar to a nest box,’ he said. ‘Ideally, blue tits would be nesting in a tree, but with the lack of trees, they choose nest boxes and with the lack of nest boxes, then why not a wall-mounted ashtray? It’s a safe place – no squirrels or magpies are going to get in. Blue tits will make their home wherever there’s a small hole. We’ve had reports of them nesting in cracks between bricks, in garden urns, in old water pumps…’
Do you know of any more unusual nests?
Britain: Number of blue tits plunges by 42% as experts warn modern feeders are threatening species: here.
September 2010: Better bird-seed recipes, newly-gained skills and home makeovers are changing the types of birds seen most often in West Country gardens, according to the final report from one of the UK’s biggest ‘citizen science’ projects – the decade-long Bristol Bird Watch.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 