Bluetit Diary    Apr 2005 (28)

 

 

Saturday 16th April, 2005

Just before we banished Carlos, Box1 had been visited several times by both a great tit and a nuthatch.  Until today we had not seen the nuthatch again - but today he turned up.

First, though, we have the difficult question of the number of Kelly's eggs.  Was it four or five?

We had set the system to come on automatically at about six o'clock this morning - you can't expect me to surface at that hour unless it's something very special!  We had hoped to catch a picture or two of Kelly laying the next egg - but it was too late.  She had already laid it!

But how many eggs do we have here?  At least four - that's obvious - but is that a fifth at the bottom?

That first picture is as good as it gets - again this could be five eggs but Kelly seems very good at covering them up when she leaves the nest.

Bluetits normally lay one egg each day first thing in the morning - with perhaps the occasional "missing egg" day.  So, if we have five eggs here we must have had four yesterday - and so on back to Tuesday (or earlier) when the first egg must have been laid.  What we cannot have is two eggs laid in one day - the birds oviducts just don't work that fast!

(One egg with two yolks - ie two potential chicks - sometimes happens, at least it does with chickens,  particularly with young birds laying for the first time.)

This could well be five, couldn't it?  This time the doubtful egg is the one at the top.  This picture was taken about an hour and a half after the first.

This was the last of the reasonable pictures of the eggs.  Kelly covered them up rather better for the rest of the day.

We shall have to see what happens tomorrow.  Perhaps she will drop her guard and show us them all in all their glory.