The chicks in Box1 are making rapid progress. They spend a lot of time in preening and wing stretching, with the
occasional bout of violent wing flapping. When a wing is stretched it is possible to see some bare pink flesh, but
they are obviously gaining strength day by day. Sometimes one chick will stray out of the nest cup, (this image shows
one of Beauty's chicks actually standing on the edge of the nest cup) climbing onto his siblings, but soon returns.
I hink they might leave the nest on Saturday, but Elizabeth thinks it could well be a day earlier.
The chicks in Box2, who are about 6 days behind, are also doing well, but more because of Victor's efforts
rather than Battler's. He brings in food regularly, sometimes mealworms from the robins' supply on the dustbin
(we have been unable to attract his attention to another mealworm feeder), but Battler behaves very strangely.
She often comes into the box without any food, sometimes after a long time away from the nest, and promptly sits
on the chicks - when she does bring in food she is very impatient, and if a chick does not grab the food and
swallow it immediately, offers it around to the others and sometimes flies off with it!
On the other hand, Victor also does not give the chicks he feeds long to grab the caterpillar. On
one occasion, Malcolm counted his putting it into a chicks beak and removing it again 18 times before finally
relenting and letting go. Perhaps this mechanism ensures that the really hungry chick gets the food more
often than the chick who doesn't actually say no. However, Beauty's chicks don't get this treatment.
When food is brought into Box1, the first chick to look hungry normally gets it. There's no hanging about
here and the parent leaves immediately to get another titbit.
Battler's chicks still appear to have their eyes closed and while Victor is doing the rounds with a grub,
they sometimes loose interest and stop gaping. If this happens to all of them, Victor utters a stern
'chirrup, chirrup' which immediately sets them all off again!
Beauty's chicks are beginning to look like bluetits now. Their feathers are growing apace and some of
them get out of the nest cup for a stretch now and again.
You can see the well developed wing on this chick on the left - you could almost mistake it for its parent!
On another occasion, it or one of its siblings was caught stretching both wings.
A chick goes for another walk ...
... and was caught outside the nest cup when Mum came with the food - but that didn't stop it
for asking for more!
One of Beauty's chicks is becoming very demanding. It no longer begs for food and waits to be fed,
it grabs the food from Beauty's beak before she realises what is happening!
These two pictures taken less than a second apart give a flavour of what is happening.
The same thing happens here but this time Beauty flew out straight away without waiting the mandatory
few seconds to see whether anything was going to appear at the other end.
The consequence was that when a sac appeared, there was nobody to remove it and after waving its tail
in the air for a short while, the chick gave up, and the sac was dropped into the bottom of the nest.
No wonder bluetit females spring clean their nests so frequently!
One of the chicks took another step forward today. It was standing on the edge of the nest cup
and started to flap its wings vigorously, the first time we have seen this. Suddenly it found itself
across the nest and bumping its head against the front of the nest box!
It was still there when Dad came in with some food some 10 seconds later.....
..... and so missed out on that chance for some grub!
Finally, Battler's chicks also took a step forward - their eyes started to open. On pictures
this size, this is very difficult to see so a red arrow has been used to indicate the eye in question.
Watching the images live on TV it is quite clear - the chicks can now see.
The last picture on the right shows Battler's 5 chicks and 5 unhatched eggs. Poor little Scrap!
