Well, Gelda still has only the five eggs. Has she finished her clutch? In the previous three years that we have hosted a great tit brood, the female has laid 5 eggs twice and 6 eggs once.
It looks as though 5 or 6 is the norm for us!
Sally is still very much in egg laying mode. This morning she laid her tenth egg. One more would make this the biggest clutch we have ever had - laid by a single female anyway!
It looks as though Gelda has started to incubate. That means that, following her miss this morning, it is unlikely she will lay any more.
It is interesting to see that when Gelda incubates, she seems to go so sleep on her eggs, whereas when Sally incubates, she is just sitting squarely on her eggs. Perhaps that is because she has far more of them!
Joe has started to feed Sally pretty regularly now.
Today we counted at least 15 feeding visits by Joe to the nest box.
This one shows Joe giving Sally a mealworm - we must have got up by now!
Another picture of Sally's ten eggs ...
... and another feed!
Joe is not the only male doing the right thing by his partner. Here is Phil, who has kept a fairly low profile so far, bringing in some for for Gelda.
To finish for the day, a rather odd little sequence.
It starts quite normally with Joe bringing some food for Sally.
However, before she eats it, Sally steps back to see whether any of her chicks have hatched, presumably because she would then have given the food to them!
Joe continued to feed Sally throughout the day - surely a good sign!