31st May
It was a busy morning for the parent Blue Tits, bringing in lots of food to the remaining 7 chicks, whilst also feeding the 2 fledglings. By 8.20am, 2 more chicks had fledged, leaving 5 in the nest. The next left at 8.45 and the final 4 had all fledged by 9.05am. They have been seen around the garden and surrounding area with the parents getting food from our feeders. One little chick, the last to fledge, has been hopping around all the pots and plants in the garden.
30th May
At 9.10 this morning, the first of the 9 Blue Tit chicks took the leap out from the box into the big wide world! Both parents were on hand with mealworms feeding the chick and trying to entice the others from the nest. However, this didn’t seem an easy task as the remaining chicks much prefered their box. A little while later at 10.25am, the second chick made the jump and flew across the garden to the hedge. We were expecting the others to follow suit during the rest of the day, however, it is now 9pm and there are still 7 chicks in the box! We expect these to fledge tomorrow.
24th May
9 chicks are growing up fast and are now sounding very much like their parents. They have all taken to exploring the box now and leaving the nest cup during the day which makes feeding quite difficult for the parents as they hardly have a chance to get in the box before the food is snatched!
We modified our Mealworm feeder slightly as the Blue Tits hadn’t really used it by replacing the hole and perspex on the front with a piece of 25mm chicken wire. The Blue Tits were down within an hour of changing the box and quickly emptied it of mealworms!
22nd May
Another week has passed very quickly and the chicks are growing up just the same! There are 9 chicks in the Blue Tit nest and all of them are being fed by both parents. Yesterday, some of the chicks spilled out of the nest cup and started exploring the rest of the nest box. Eventually, all of the chicks were huddled together just underneath the entrance hole, making the parents confused as they flew in expecting to see all their chicks in the nest cup! The male blue tit even started feeding chicks perched on the outside of the box through the hole. The amount of noise from the box is increasing each day, so much so that the microphones don’t need to be on to hear the blue tit chicks from the house!
16th May
Well it has been a few days since our last diary post and things so far have been going well in Box 1. Both parents are in and out with food for the chicks. We are still struggling to see all the chicks. We believe all 10 chicks hatched and we have seen all 10 a couple of times but they never stay still long enough to check all the time! Although we put out Mealworms for the birds, the Blue Tit’s don’t really seem interested this year and are quite happy finding the natural grubs and caterpillars on the trees and bushes nearby.
11th May
Overnight, we think another 2 eggs have hatched bringing the total to 8 chicks. We can see two eggs that have not hatched yet but it is hard to see if there are anymore! We will keep checking and let you know as soon as we find out!
10th May
When the cameras switched on at 7am this morning, two of the eggs had hatched and the parents were in and out with food! In the next few hours, 4 more eggs hatched, bringing the total up to 6 chicks. Both parents have been very busy bringing in grubs and caterpillars. The female has spent quite a lot of time sitting on the chicks and diving in the nest checking all the time!
29th April
The female Blue Tit has spent the last few days sitting on her eggs, starting to incubate them. However, this has not stopped her laying a couple more eggs! We are now up to 10 eggs in Box 1. We think this will probably be it and she will now start the process of incubating the eggs. The male Blue Tit has been very good so far bringing in lots of food to the nest for the female, which should hopefully be good when the chicks hatch.
26th April
Well the Blue Tit’s have been busy and the nest now boasts 7 eggs! Both the male and the female keep coming back to the box during the day checking on the nest and adding feathers. We are expecting probably a couple more eggs before she starts sitting on the eggs.
20th April
After a couple of weeks of busy nest building, the first egg was seen in Box 1 this evening. The Blue Tit spent a lot of time around 6 o’clock this evening, and when she popped out, there was the egg!