Bluetit Diary    May 2005 (23)

 

 

Friday 27th May, 2005

Now that we are looking at the great tit chicks more closely, we see that one of them seems to suffer from very retarded development both when compared to the others and in absolute terms.  After all it is 18 days since they hatched so they should be ready to leave the nest very soon.  This immature chick, that we have been calling Scrap, looks anything but ready to leave!

Here you can see Scrap, the chick in the middle of the three in the picture.  He has none of the black and white head feathers of the other two which look very similar to an adult.

Here is another image taken a quarter of an hour later.  Even Scrap's beak still seems to have more of the juvenile yellow edging than the beaks of the others.

The other three chicks are doing their wing flapping exercises quite frequently now.  We have yet to see Scrap engaging in this activity. 

Today was a very hot day - has the heat gone to Babe's head?  Or is it just that she cannot find food?

Here she appears to have brought in a large bunch of nesting material - moss or something like that - ...

... and then she tries to feed it to one of the chicks!

I seem to remember seeing something like this happen before, but I cannot remember when.

A minute later and she is back with some more!  This time its a huge bunch!

More wing flapping.  These chicks will be going in a couple of days at this rate.

This shot, taken towards the end of the afternoon, shows the tremendous difference in development between Scrap and the other three chicks.

Scrap doesn't lack for spirit!  In spite of his (lack of) size, he often gets to the source of food first.

Let's hope that if he fledges after the other three, his parents will continue to look after him in the nest until he is ready to go!