I've been trying to see the eggs in Box1 in the first few days after the start of laying on 12th April, but without success. On 12th April, there were several shots of a single egg, but no more than that. However, there were sufficient pictures of the single egg to make me fairly confident that there really was only the one.
One of many pictures of Amy's first egg.
On 13th April, this shot, the best I could find, gives the impression that there were three eggs. This normally implies that I had made a mistake and that the first egg must have been laid on 11th April, or even earlier. The alternative explanation that there were two females laying eggs would have seemed too unlikely to be considered!
On April 14th, 15th and 17th, what looks like a bluetit laying an egg was captured at 7:41am, 7:28am and 7:46am respectively. The bird stays in the same place for several minutes, rhythmically rocking to and fro. Other than the rocking, she does not move. It looks as though she is trying to squeeze something big out of her cloaca - ie lay an egg!
On 17th April, when we switched on in the morning at 7:36am, we found a lone egg which had clearly been laid out of the nest cup (or I suppose it could have been knocked out of the nest cup during a fight or something!)
And so to today!
The lone egg is still clearly visible where it was originally seen. All the birds appear to ignore it entirely. They are clearly not recognising it as an important object when it's in the wrong place.
Joe has been pretty good at looking after Amy. (And who knows, perhaps the other female too!)
This sequence starts innocently enough with Joe coming to the nest box with some food which he proceeds to give to the female inside. But is it Amy?
Suddenly a third bird comes to the nest box and goes straight inside.
"Here, what are you doing giving food to her - it's mine!"
For a second or so, nobody moves.
The food stayed uneaten while they all appeared to be working out what to do.
Suddenly, the female with the food in her beak made a dash for the exit hole.
For a short while Amy (if it were she) and Joe just stared at each other ...
... and then Joe beat a hasty retreat - presumably to look for something for Amy!
Can Joe not tell the difference between Amy and the other female, or doesn't he want to?
(You can still see the single egg which was out of the nest cup here. All the birds ignore it entirely.)
Here at last is a better picture of the eggs in Box1. There seem to be 9 of them to me. This together with the out of place egg make a total of 10 eggs laid in 7 days!
Finally, another egg shot, this time of 10 eggs (plus the out of place egg of course).