Today has been the windiest day for a very long time, with wind speeds of between 35mph and 40mph (and probably more) lashing the area. With a high of 13°C, trees have fallen locally, and of course we've had a lot more rain at times. The 'wild' weather looks set to continue for a few days, although not as bad as today, and then we might begin to get a taste of Winter with some colder spells.

So, on such a cloudy and inhospitable day, we were surprised to see that the box received a visitor!

Being conscious of the glass wall issue, we hadn't put the lights on, as we wanted to see if anyone would have a look. At 10.37am a little head bobbed back and forth in the bird box hole. The visitor almost looked as if it was straining at times and really wanted to enter, but a look and a peek was all it was, and off it flew again.

Great we thought! We'll put the lights on now, and see what happens this afternoon ...

An hour and half later, and someone was at the hole again, bobbing back and forth as before. The face almost looked like a little Badger, so we'll have to tweak the colour settings on the computer!

Just when thought that this was another 'window shopping' trip, the Blue Tit wiggled itself through the hole and landed flat on the floor:

It then immediately looked right at the camera, and almost nervously looked around as if it felt it shouldn't be there. The glass wall was the only thing that it scrutinised, and then it was off, just as quickly as it had entered:

You can see the brief inspection here.

Excellent stuff, but it's still very early days. Let's hope it comes back and gets used to the 'viewing booth'.

This afternoon we added some roofing felt to the back of the box. You can see a rising 'tide' mark on the right-hand wall where water had dripped down the outside back wall and penetrated from beneath. Hopefully we've fixed this now, and it should dry out in a day or so.