Having been away for the last 10 days, I wasn’t sure if any chicks would be left by the time I got home. They could have fledged, or not made it that far. So it was a relief to hear loud cheaping coming from the box as I reached the front door yesterday.
Not only were all the chicks still there, but it turns out we had 9 chicks rather than 8. They are much easier to count now they are bigger and less tangled.
There’s been plenty of wing exercises in the last 24 hours, so I think they’ll be off soon. Last time I checked, I could only see 8, so one may have fledged (or just be hiding).
I’m off on a work trip for a few days now, so won’t get to see the rest fledge. Dr C is under instructions to send me daily updates.
When I am back from my trip I have some exciting adventures to tell you about, including another couple of ticks on my British Animal Challenge list.
The bluetits in our camera box hatched over the weekend! There were 9 eggs, and they’ve all gone. As of this morning there were at least 8 chicks alive (it’s hard to count them as they are an ever moving pile at the moment, with some buried underneath at any one point).
At this stage they’re still bald and their eyes haven’t opened. They look so vulnerable, with their big heads on top of tiny, scrawny necks, flopping around on top of their siblings. It seems a miracle any bluetits survive to fledge.
Newly hatched bluetit chicks
Mum and Dad are working hard to keep the little beaks busy. Apparently bluetit chicks need around 100 insects each a day – that’s a lot of flights to and from the box when you have 8-9 chicks!
Bluetits fledge roughly 2-3 weeks after hatching, all going well. We’re cheering our little family on (quietly, so as not to disturb them)!
It seems that spring is finally here, at last. The bluetits at my dormouse monitoring site seem behind compared to previous years – there were fewer nests, and hardly any nests had eggs in when we checked them on 19th April.
At home, the bluetits in my camera nest box have started incubating 9 eggs. I think incubation started last weekend, and it usually lasts 12-16 days, so I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for signs of hatching later next week.
7 bluetit egss in our camera box nest
There seemed to be lots of squabbling between male birds yesterday in the garden – blackbirds were quarreling, as were sparrows. But that’s hardly surprising – I hear preparing for new babies can be a bit stressful.
A pair of goldfinches have been around our house quite a lot in the last week or so. I have a suspicion they must be nesting nearby, but I haven’t spotted where yet. That’s quite exciting, as they tend to be occasional visitors to our garden, and I haven’t seen signs of nesting before.
The chicks are a week old now, and the change in them has been remarkable. Counting them is still a bit of a challenge, as there always seems to be one chick or another buried under a pile of siblings, but occasionally we do get a glimpse of all eight at once.
They’re a lot noisier now than when they first hatched, and while they still look a little bit like monsters, their feathers are beginning to grow, and they don’t like quite so much like they’ll snap whenever they fling their heads back for food.
The parents have both been kept busy catching insects to feed to the demanding crowd, and disposing of droppings. Sometimes when a chick eats a particularly large insect you can see the bulge move down its throat as it swallows.
In the last day or so one or two of the chicks have looked like they were trying to climb out of the bowl of the nest, and almost making it. They’re getting a lot stronger and their stubby wings are growing.
They’re behind most of the nests in the dormouse site I monitor – the chicks I saw there on Saturday looked like mini-bluetits, complete with proper feathers, almost ready to fledge.
This time next week the chicks may have fledged. They’ve got quite a lot of developing to do before then, but it’s remarkable how quickly they’ve grown already. Of course, life is precarious for chicks, so I’m not counting my bluetits before they fledge. But they’ve done well to make it this far.
My weekend was made when I turned on the TV and saw the bluetits in our camera nest box were hatching.
The newly hatched chicks look so vulnerable, it’s amazing any ever survive to fledge. Their tiny necks look much to weak to support their heads, yet when a parent bird enters with an insect, the chicks manage to fling their heads back and open their beaks.
At first the chicks were silent, floppy little things. It’s hard to count how many there are as it’s not obvious what bits belong to which chick. By the end of Sunday, our best guess was that five chicks had hatched, and three eggs remained.
It’s wonderful to see chicks in the camera nest box. Last year a pair of bluetits started building a nest in it, but gave up. When we put the camera back in this February, we couldn’t remember if we had cleaned the box out last autumn, or if the nesting material in there was last year’s. It took a while to be sure that bluetits were adding to what was in there.
A few years ago we had two successful house sparrow broods, but nesting materials blocked the camera, so we couldn’t see what was going on.
The only previous time bluetits have hatched in the box, none of them survived to fledge, as one of the adults went missing, and the lone parent wasn’t able to keep up the supply of 100 caterpillars a day that each chick needs. I hope this year’s brood will be more successful.
It’s a privilege to be able to witness such a special moment.
My Wild Garden 2016 challenge kept me busy over the year, as each month I tried to make my garden better for wildlife. For the first time this year I fed live mealworms to the birds – it was great seeing how well this went down with them, and something I’ll do again in 2017. We also installed an insect house, and it was great watching the bees move in. Perhaps my favourite Wild Garden activity of the year was creating the Bog Garden – lots of digging involved, but worth it. I’m looking forward to seeing how it does this year, now the plants have had a chance to bed in and grow.
Dr C gave me a great new toy – a macro lens, and I’ve enjoyed experimenting with that over the year. The Macrophotography course I did with Adrian Davies was particularly helpful. Some of the images I took that day even featured in my 2017 calendar!
And it’s great that the Paris Agreement on Climate Change has now come into force. On a smaller scale, it’s lovely to hear that the beavers on the River Otter are breeding.
Lowlights
Work has been very tough this year (particularly in the first half of the year), so this blog has taken a bit of a back seat for a while. It’s frustrating, as I’ve loads of things I wanted to tell you about, and lots of photos and videos that need editing.
The referendum result was staggering, and, to me, hugely disappointing. It’s still not clear how it will affect many things, including our laws for protecting wildlife and the environment. The whole campaign was a bit of a disaster – even those campaigning for remain failed to make a case on the positive things that EU membership has brought this country, including cleaner rivers, beaches and air, and protection for species like dormice. One thing is clear: we need make sure whatever happens next does not damage this protection.
2016 has seen a lot of beloved public figures die. Among them, perhaps the most famous tiger in the world: Machli, the lady of the lake. I was lucky enough to see her in the wild, back in 2006. She has had a long life for a tiger, and brought up many youngsters that will continue her legacy. But it’s still sad to think she is no longer ruling the temples and lakes of Ranthambore.
Machli
Let’s hope next year brings peace, reconciliation and restoration between people, and between humans and nature.
The mild weather of October has given way to a chilly November. Time to get ready for winter. So Dr C got the ladder out to take the camera out of the birdbox, which is hidden behind a tangle of clematis by our front door.
So it was a little galling when he discovered a birds nest on top of the nest box. It looks like birds did nest this year, on rather than in the bird box. And all this time, it was easily watchable from our sitting room, if only we had known to look.
Bird nest on top of the camera nest box
I am not sure what sort of birds nested there – it looks quite different from the many bluetit and wren nests I have seen, but they have usually been in a box, rather than freestanding. Any ideas? My best guess would be robins, given how frequently I saw them in the back garden this spring.
I’ve no idea what happened in this nest. Was it abandoned before any eggs were laid, like the one in the box? Did they lay eggs? Did the chicks fledge. I will never know. I would like to think they did, and that perhaps they will be back next year. I will certainly be keeping an eye out for them!
The bluetits have started nesting. I saw my first dormouse of the year on Saturday. And the hedgehogs are out of hibernation, active and hungry. Spring is here!
I’m also feeling that urge to get outside and do stuff. Hopefully the long weekend will give me a chance to work on a couple of projects I have been planning.
After last year’s no-show for birds nesting in our camera bird-box, I was very excited earlier this week when I got home to find a bluetit roosting in it, who had clearly been bringing in nesting materials.
Fluffed-up bluetit roosting in our camera nest box
I’m trying not to count my chickens (bluetits) before they hatch, as I know that sometimes they’ll start building nests in several places, before settling on one. But it’s still a positive sign.
Of course, it was only once the bluetits had started using the box that I realised that I’ve misplaced the adapter that lets me plug the camera into my computer. So for now I’m having to make do with taking photos of the TV screen. But I’ll try to rectify that in the next few days so I can get some better images and some video.
There’s been a bluetit roosting in the box every night since that first evening, and they seem to have been particularly busy at bringing in nesting material this morning.
Progress with nest building
I’m glad it’s bluetits nesting in there this year. The year before last we had house sparrows, which was great, except their nest covered the camera, so we could only hear and not see what was going on until the chicks were big enough to have flattened the nest. Bluetits have more open-top nests, so hopefully we’ll have a better view.
The only time bluetit chicks hatched in that box previously one of the adults disappeared soon after they hatched, and we had to watch while another chick died each day, until there were none left. I’m hoping for a more successful outcome this year. I’ll keep you informed!
This is my diary of the wildlife where I live in Oxfordshire, and sometimes the places I visit. I am a 18 year old young naturalist with a passion for British wildlife, especially Badgers and Hares. I have been blogging since May 2013 and you can read my old blog posts at www.appletonwildlifediary.blogspot.co.uk
Wild South 