The female is still turning and incubating her eggs leaving the nest for short periods that seem to be at least once every hour. The male is very confused when he brings food back to the nest for her to find her missing.
He is also spending lots of time visiting to preen his mate -
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The female is incubating and turning the eggs
List of visits to Nest Box Cam in May
We noticed that the female was shuffling about on her nest more than usual and seemed to be trying to look under her feathers. When she moved we were surprised to notice that it seemed one chick had hatched and another was breaking out of its shell. We can count at least three tiny chicks. WE hadn’t expected any hatching until next week.
The male sprung into action bringing tiny grubs or caterpillars in and usually passing them to the female so she can feed the chicks. There are times however when he seems to want to feed them himself.
Three more chicks had hatched this morning leaving just two eggs still to hatch. The female is still spending lots of time incubating. She is also still turning the two remaining eggs. It’s amazing that the chicks are not squashed under all this activity. The female was also seen eating one of the empty egg shells so nothing is wasted.
The male is busily hurrying back and forth with food for the chicks and some for the female. He sometimes passes food to the female so she can feed the babies and at other times seems to want to feed them himself. The female too brings back food as she returns from one of her outings. As the chicks grow the task of keeping them fed will become harder still.
The chicks are already gaping and begging to be fed when they hear one of the parent birds returning to the nest.
It is important that the nest is kept clean so the parent birds remove any bird droppings. The droppings from the young are enclosed in a membrane called a fecal sac which the parent removes from the nest.
The chicks are now more mobile -
The female bird makes sure the nest is clean by rummaging under the chicks for any droppings that may have been missed.
Any flies that stray into the nest box are soon made a meal of.
The nest cup is becoming very crowded as the chicks are growing quickly. As the chicks stretch we can see that the wings are beginning to develop.
The chicks are leaving the nest cup more frequently and now can see to find their way back.
Chicks are leaving the nest cup and spending more time hopping around or sitting in other parts of the nest box.
One chick died and the mother bird removed it unceremoniously. It didn’t seem too small so we’re not sure why it died.
We think we have five chicks remaining. They seem to be feathering up well and developing blue tit markings. They spend lots of time preening their feather and stretching their wings
Two more chicks died. The parent bird had a struggle to remove one from the nest
box -
After both dead chicks were removed the remaining chicks were very still which was a worry.
Some of the chicks are really growing quickly and becoming quite inquisitive but I am a bit worried that there is quite a big difference in development amongst the remaining chicks. I hope they are in the nest for long enough for all the chicks to develop fully.
The most adventurous chick fluttered up to the hole of the nesting box to take a peep outside.
Another chick died late today. It was being picked on by its larger siblings who pushed in front of it to beg for food and were seen pecking at it from time to time.
Only three chicks remain so it is possible that one of the 8 eggs didn’t hatch as we have only seen the parent birds disposing of three dead chicks. We never actually saw 8 chicks together.
The chicks are exercising their wings and peeping out of the nest boxes obviously ready to leave the nest
The three remaining chicks have fledged although there was a big difference in sizes. The largest chick left first at 6:36 a.m. followed by the middle one and the the smallest at 6:45 a.m.