Titmouse Scores First Video

This past week, I have been setting up video coverage for some new bird houses we put up. This morning, we found we had captured a pair of Black-Crested Titmice on video. The video clip below is a merge of two clips. In the first, one bird enters the nest box with a moth in its beak. It calls to the other bird, which comes into the nest, and they swap places. Then, a few hours later, another bird enters with yet another moth (this one is wriggling). It calls again but no second bird enters the nest.

The calls are nothing like I have heard from a Titmouse before. It starts as repeated, low, cooing sound like piou piou piou that sounds almost like dove. Then it increases in rapidity to almost a flutter as the other bird enters the nest box. This set of four frames from the video summarize the key events.