It is nice when your projects get used. A bird box

Back in November I built a bird box for @LisaP apologies, I thought it was such a simple project it didn’t warrant a post in projects

In December I fitted it to our wall in France


Thinking nothing was ever going to nest there, after two months wait we had our first visitor right at the end of March.

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Two days later she started decorating

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2nd April she brought her mate to have a look

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Over the next few weeks she built the home entirely on her own.

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April 12th, almost 2weeks to the day from when she first viewed the property, she slept there for the first night!

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9days after moving in you can see the tip of the first egg in the hollow of the nest, just under her tail.

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Now apparently she will lay up to 16 eggs (one a day) over the next two weeks before starting to hatch them.
Losing 10% of her body weight each time. The male has been feeding her insects in the nest but very infrequently. His work starts once they are hatched.

To be updated

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Amazing!

What a cool “cross-discipline” project to offer as a course…make a birdbox (laser/woodshop/CNC), build a nature-cam with a Raspberry Pi and transmit the pics (IoT).

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I already had that planned as a project/course for November/December (too late now for nesting birds) tying that in to the electronics as well is a brilliant idea

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and screen printing, print a giant QR code onto a t-shirt so people can scan it and watch your birds :slight_smile:

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And such beautiful tenants too!

I’d been thinking of deleting this app as it annoys me with its frequency……but with this stories ‘to be continued’ I’m staying! I can think of no better ad for Makerspace.

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That’s a fab idea! If it works. :hatching_chick:

Looks rather romantic!! :heart::hatching_chick:

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Well the notifications from the birdbox in France have been going mad today …… looks like the blue tit population is about to get a boost!! Three mouths spotted so far

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Well unfortunately the power has gone down at the house in France , I will be there on Tuesday to see what the problem is.
So far here is the progress
The first sign of life was around the end of April

Then followed many feeding trips from both parents (this taken 7th may )
We were not sure if we could see 3 or 4 chicks in the nest
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20 May,
looks like they are nearly ready to leave the nest, I think we will miss their inaugural flights

The magnificent seven!!!

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Hi Mark,

We are starting to look at our content inclusion for the Dulwich festival Maker fair we have a “Don’t be Shy! submit your Make” event happening on Friday. Would this be of any interest to you maybe and/or do you know anyone else I can reach out too?

Cheers
Dorine

Happy for you to use these photos , unfortunately the box is in France waiting for the next family

We do have a lodger that turns up every night, not sure if this is mum, dad or one of the kids!!!

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Do you have any other projects that are UK side :)?#

Also is the bird box a live feed we could hook into during the festival?

It is a live feed but during the day all you will see is a box of shite!! It is only occupied when it gets dark

You can tell I’m not a bird person lol :joy:

Any way to record a 20-30 min video of the birds in action and we can just loop it?

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I’ve been thinking about building one of these recently but have no experience with electronics. I’d love to use it as an opportunity to get some electronic skills with a raspberry pi and would be very excited to help put a course together - is there an electronics guru who would be interested in getting involved? @electrotechs?

What did you use for the networked camera Mark - was it an off the shelf solution?

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Shame on me !!! Yes off the shelf …. https://www.green-feathers.co.uk/collections/bird-box-cameras/products/wifi-bird-box-camera

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