Bluetit Diary    May 2008 (17)

 

 

Wednesday 28th May, 2008

Today's the day that has been pencilled in on our calendar for a couple of weeks now.  It's the day that Sally's chicks are due to fledge!

The first picture of the morning looks like business as usual.  There are certainly no signs of excitement amongst the chicks.

You can see all ten chicks here as a parent brings in yet another meal for one of them.

Yes, you can see 11 bluetits here!  The one facing to the right at the top of the picture is one of the parents!

I'm not sure that I'd like to go into the box to face that lot!

An hour has passed since the picture above and all ten chicks are still in the box.  What's more none of them has been showing any signs of leaving, such as hopping up onto the nest box hole to look outside.

In previous years, this was the normal way we knew that the chicks would be leaving in a day or so.

Having said that, one of the chicks suddenly jumps up to the hole - looks out ...

... and without hesitating a second, well, just flops out of the box.

Ten out of ten for courage, two out of ten for style!

Following what happened next gets a little tricky here.  This is the first picture taken after the first chick fledged - and yet you can only see seven chicks.  Perhaps the others are doing their usual thing when the first chick goes and are hiding at the bottom of the nest cup!

Once one chick had gone, it was as if a dam had been breeched.  Another chick prepares to leave here.

A minute later there was another one.

We now can see pretty clearly that there are only seven chicks in the box - including the one perching in the hole.  That means that three chicks have fledged although we haven't managed to capture a picture of more than one actually in the air.

Another chick gets ready ...

... and this time we capture a picture of the fourth chick's moment of departure!

Five out of ten for style perhaps?  At least it seems to be heading upwards!

The fifth chick prepares to go.  You can see its beak is open - what can it be saying?  "Help - what do I do now?" perhaps.

Oops!

We must have missed one.  Now there are only four chicks in the nest box.