Productivity plummets

We're all very excited as we're expecting! We've had rats with wings Feral Pigeons trying to nest between the shutter and the windowbox for weeks and weeks. They made a loose collection of crisp packets and McDonalds wrappers and did a great deal of cooing/having sex. The first inkling I had that they were remotely successful was when I found my car with egg all over it one day. They seem to be trying again though.

A few years ago we had Pied Wagtails nest in the windowbox, so I thoughtfully supplied an open-fronted nest box and waterbowl. They chose to ignore these homely additions for a while, but last week - success! I spied a wee tail poking out of the box. You can see their new home just underneath the alarm box. We spent many hours fiddling about rigging up the Heath-Robinson technology. A cheap-and-cheerful webcam was carefully swaddled in clingfilm and tape, a hole drilled in the nearest windowframe, and much computer jiggerypokery was done.
Here we have the close-up. You can just see the webcam poking out of the top of the wrought-iron, and the wag-tail poking out of the box. Hoorah. The bonus is that you can see the pigeons in the background from this angle - giving two nests for the price of one. Wonderful webmaster Dave Dunford did his magic webthing and we now have the image updating here.

The wagtails are completely devoted, with both parents incubating (the female seems to always do the nightshift). The pigeons badly need to go to parenting classes. I suspect they're very inexperienced - disappearing for hours and hours at a time. Anyway - the whole office is obsessing about the nests, and a great deal too much time is being spent watching wags rather than working. We are hoping for babies sometime next week...