Bluetit Diary    Apr 2020 (8)

 

 

Friday 17th April, 2020

That looks suspiciously like eggs in Box1 to me!  But how many of them are there?  Two or is it three?

These birds do like to hide their eggs until they start to incubate them.  Then they don't seem to care!

This is an interesting sequence.  Drake comes into Box2 with a morsel of food for Daisy, but she is not in the nest box.

He waits for quite a while without either leaving, or eating the food himself!

Eventually she comes to the nest box and pauses on the entrance hole.  Drake is so excited that he immediately leans forward and passes the food to Daisy before she even has time to go inside!

He then turns away, but still stays right in front of the nest box hole.

Daisy has therefore to squeeze past him so that she can go into the box.

Drake takes the hint and leaves!

 

 

Saturday 18th April, 2020

The eggs, if that is what they were, are all hidden again!

 

 

Sunday 19th April, 2020

It looks suspicious like there are eggs in Box1, though they are partially hidden by the dark feathers Chloe has brought into the box.

Here she comes in with yet another feather, though this time it's a white one.

A friend recently asked where all the feathers came from.  Even in my garden there are groups of feathers on the ground, either as a result of a bird kill, for example by a sparrow hawk, or an attempted kill.  Cats are also a danger to birds on the ground.  Anyway, if you are a bluetit, you would clearly have little trouble in finding feathers!

Hurrah!  A clear picture of several eggs.  As today is Sunday 19th, and there are clearly only 4 eggs in the nest, it is unlikely that what I thought was an egg on Sunday 12th could have been one.  Once a female starts laying her clutch, she lays one egg each day, so this clutch must probably have been started on Thursday 16th April.  I have known a single day to be missed, but not four!  Still, I suppose it is possible!  We shall see what happens over the next few days!