Bluetit Diary    May 2004 (28)

 

 

Tuesday 25th May, 2004

Well, today was the big day.  By the early afternoon, all the chicks had left the nest and joined the rest of the birds in our garden.  We still have some unresolved puzzles, such as when the first chick flew!

After a pretty reliable computer record, today of all days the main computer chose to freeze four times.  On the first two occasions we lost a significant period of the record as we were not expecting this eventuality.  However, we thought, no problem.  We have been recording the video record in parallel on our VCR - we'll use that to fill in the gaps!

It was then we discovered that for all of the day there had apparently been only six chicks in the nest.  In fact at the moment, the last time we have incontrovertible evidence of seven chicks is just after 6am yesterday (Monday 24th).  I have spent the morning searching for the moment when the first chick left but so far I have been unsuccessful.

Barney was again first to report for duty with some food - it is a quarter past five. 

He had already fed the chicks three times before Fluffy rolled up a mere two and a half minutes later.

It was seeing pictures like this that made me realise that we had not seen seven chicks for some time.  Now, there could be one hidden beneath this lot but sooner or later surely one is bound to see all seven - if there are seven to see!

This shows the departure of the third chick.  The first we cannot find; the second occurred while the computer was frozen - we've found the picture on the video tape but there is no computer record.

So this image of the third chick is the first we can show you.  He sits in the exit hole for ages, presumably trying to make sense of what he is seeing for the first time.  You can see his claws gripping the edge of the hole.

Finally, he decides that this time he's going and he launches himself into space.  He is heading for the roof of our garage which is only about three yards from the nest box.

The system caught one last picture of him just before he dropped out of sight and landed.

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