Bluetit Diary    May 2005 (10)

 

 

Wednesday 11th May, 2005

Although not much change seems to take place from one day to the next, when looked at over several days it is apparent that the change in the chicks is substantial.  Kelly's chicks are now a week old and they have already found their voices.  In addition, they have a fine layer of grey down covering all their exposed flesh.  As a result, when they are huddled down in the nest cup, it is quite difficult to see them at all!  Occasionally, you can see that they are developing rudimentary wing feathers!

Babe's chicks are only two days old, but here too you can already see some changes.  They are still pretty pink to look at but you can just make out the start of the covering of grey fluff, just like Kelly's chicks.

Here you can see that all five of Babe's chicks are thriving.  Although they are not yet cheeping, they can obviously hear as when there is a noise at the entrance hole, they all rear up and open their beaks wide hoping for something to be stuffed down their throats.

Ferdinand continues to do his bit and often brings food into the nest box.  He passes it to Babe quite readily and shows no sign of the awkwardness that Boris sometimes shows.

Here he is passing a fairly large caterpillar to Babe.

Something happened in Kelly's box.  Both Boris and Kelly were in the box feeding the chicks when suddenly ...

... both started flapping their wings!

We have no idea what prompted this behaviour which ended as quickly as it began.