Bluetit Diary    May 2003 (37)

 

 

Saturday 17th May, 2003

Life continues as usual for our birds.  Flash and Fluffy are feeding their five chicks but none of Fantail's remaining eggs have yet hatched out. 

During a period of just under two hours, Fred brought food 26 times to Fantail.  This is about once every 4½ minutes!

Just one of those 26 feeds.

There was another funny incident that happened in Box2 during the morning.  We have mentioned the battle of wills that sometimes takes place when Flash wants to feed the chicks himself.  Well this time Fluffy wouldn't budge and stayed stuck to the nest.  In the end Flash gave way and passed his food to her to give to the chicks.

Fluffy had her back to Flash when he came into the box and ignored his pleas entirely.  He tried crowding her as usual, but this time she stayed put and Flash ended up standing on Fluffy's back!

Finally, Flash accepted the inevitable with good grace and passed his little green caterpillar to Fluffy.

She, of course, waited until he had left the nest before she moved to one side and fed one of the chicks.  A victory for hen's rights!