Jess's chicks seem to have survived the night, but there is still one unhatched egg in the nest. Is this an unfertile egg, or is it the last one laid a day after she started incubating?
Here is a picture showing the unhatched egg first thing in the morning.
Shortly after midday it is still in one piece.
If you look very closely, I think you can see that the egg is hatching. It is situated in the bottom left of the nest cup and is in two pieces with something pink between them.
Jess comes back and soon picks up the eggshell. This time she disposes of it by eating it.
This means that all nine eggs have now hatched.
A quick shot of Becky's eggs - all ten of them.
Back in Box2, Jess is collecting a faecal sac from one of the chicks. It's good to see that at least one of them is getting sufficient food to create this.
Jess couldn't wish for a better partner than James who has been bringing food to the nest all day ...
... even if he does appear to want to feed the chicks himself sometimes. Here he is ignoring Jess's begging for the food so that she can feed it to the chicks herself.
She seems to get quite passionate about it, but James ignores her and gives the food to the chicks himself.
Finally, she gets the message and leaves James to it. There are eight gapes here and I think you can make out the ninth chick in the bottom left hand corner of the nest cup.
What on earth has happened here? This picture was taken less than a second after the one above, and looks as though James has fallen into the nest cup. The next image shows him back on the side as usual!
I've never seen a picture of a male in this situation before!
It's now near the end of the day and the proud parents have continued to bring food to the chicks all day.
Nine gapes. They seem to be thriving so far!
Let's hope they continue to do well tomorrow.
I have commented a couple of time on the fact that James appears to be an excellent father for the chicks. Over the years we have noticed that some bluetits are good, diligent parents like Jess and James, and some cannot be relied upon. What causes them to vary so much? Surely their upbringing can have little to do with it as the chicks are too young and inexperienced when they leave the nest to have learned the art of being a good parent. So for our bluetits at least, it must all be in the genes.