Hello!
We put up a bird box with camera in 2018, and from spring 2019 onwards, each year we have had tits nesting - sometimes blue, sometimes great. Last year's great tit nest was especially successful and nine chicks fledged!
Each autumn my partner takes the box down and cleans it thoroughly then puts it back up.
This year we've been taking it for granted that the birds will return as they have every year. But despite both a blue tit and a great tit coming to investigate the box, no nest building has begun as of today (10th April). I keep a diary every year of the birds' behaviour and usually by this time, nest building has at least started (sometimes finished, and sometimes the first egg has been laid).
We haven't fully given up hope yet but it looks like the birds have rejected our nest box this year, and have no idea why this might be. There has even been competition and fighting among tits in previous years over the box so it seemed to be desirable to them, and we're stumped as to what's happened. We still have tits active in our garden, they are visiting the feeders as they usually would so it's not like the birds just aren't around.
I've been racking my brains for things that have changed since last year and can't think of much, other than we now have dunnocks nesting quite near to the box, in a climbing bush, and wonder whether this might be off putting to the tits. We've also been a little more sporadic with putting food out, given I am disabled and rely on my partner to do it, who has been busy and not as able to keep up with it. But whenever we put food out, they are on it, and they're active in the garden every day anyway. I feel like they wouldn't even investigate the box if they thought it wasn't a good area for them.
So what might be going on? Any ideas as to why they're not nesting would be welcome - we would hate to be unintentionally doing something to put the birds off. We love watching the chicks every year and will miss them this year.
TL;DR - tits have nested in our bird box every year for five years but seem to have rejected it this year, not much has changed so wondering why.
TIA,
Mossy