Bluetit Diary    May 2015 (5)

 

 

Monday 11th May, 2015

To me, the surprising thing about what is happening in Box2 is that the two females (and the male) are co-operating so beautifully in the  bringing up of their chicks.  Although at one stage there seemed to be some antagonism from one of the females, now that the pressures of finding sufficient food for them all are clear, this seems to have disappeared.  The following sequence shows how they now fully co-operate with each other.

We start with Suzie (I think) sitting on the chicks in Box2.

Rosie comes in with food.

(Rosie is at the top right and Suzie is still on the nest cup.)

There is no competition between these two.  Suzie moves aside so that Rosie can feed the chicks.

After she has fed a chick, Rosie settles down on the nest cup and starts to do some housekeeping.

You might think that Suzie would be a bit put out by that, but there is no sign of jealousy on her part.

At that point Pete comes into the box with more food.  At the time, Rosie is doing something low down in the nest cup and Suzie is still roughly in the same place as she was.

Pete therefore passes the food to Suzie.

Suzie doesn't appear to know quite what to do with it.  She can't get at the chicks as they are covered by Rosie.

(Incidentally, I can't see how Rosie can contort herself so much that her tail looks as though it is over her head.  But clearly she must be able to!)

Immediately after this, Pete departs.

Suzie moves to where Pete was.  (You can see that the second bird in the box isn't Pete by the white band around Suzie's head.)

You can see that she still has the food that Pete gave her in her beak.

Suzie then leans forward and passes the food to Rosie ...

... who in turn feeds it to the chicks while Suzie watches.

When the food has been eaten, Suzie leaves the nest box ...

... and Rosie settles down to mother the chicks.

How's that for co-operation?

As a brief diversion, the chicks in Box3 seem to be coming on all right.  However, it is still not clear to me whether there are 6 or 7 chicks because of the feather that is still in the way.  I hope it doesn't stay there long!