Bluetit Diary    Apr 2019 (26)

 

 

Tuesday 30th April, 2019

Andy still brings food to Ann from time to time. 

Here he is again - this time you can see he has a catapillar.

 
Another feed for Ann.  Andy's doing pretty well by her really!
Incubation must be a boring time for the female, but it's also pretty boring for her partner!

In Box2, Ben is also bringing food to his partner.  Here though, normally Bella will pass the food to one of their chicks!

Here's Ben with more food for Bella and the chicks.

Bella moves off the nest cup . . .

. . . so that she can pass it to a chick.

Ben watches her while she feeds the chick.

As usual, a fecal sac was produced afterwards by the chick, and Ben collects it and takes it out of the nest box.

Afterwards, Bella settles down and mothers the chicks again.

Ten chicks can be seen here.  One is a little tricky to see.  It is partly hidden by the second gape on the left hand side of the picture.

Bella comes in with a truly monstrous caterpillar.  It looks almost as big as the chick she is expecting to eat it.

She has great difficulty in finding a chick that is able to get it down.
It is interesting to see the technique the parent birds use to make sure all the chicks get fed.  They offer the food item to each chick that shows any interest, taking it away again if the chick doesn't grab it quickly enough.  If a chick has problems swallowing it, the parent will take the food out of the chicks beak again and try another chick.  This goes on until a chick is hungry enough to grab the food and swallow it quickly.

A chick is trying to swallow it, but it is so large that it gets stuck half way down.  Here you can see part if the caterpillar is still sticking out of the chicks beak!  Bella tries to remove it but it is too far down its gullet and all she succeeds in doing is lifting the chick off the ground!

Finally, the chick manages to get it down - so Bella flies off to find more food.

A picture of both parents feeding the chicks.

This rather confused picture shows that all 11 chicks are still alive and apparently thriving!

A better picture of the magnificent eleven chicks!

Finally for today, a picture of both parents feeding the chicks.