Bluetit Diary    May 2020 (8)

 

 

Sunday 10th May, 2020

On the day after the disastrous events in Box2, it all looks very peaceful.  One solitary egg destined never to hatch. 

I wonder whether it was infertile, or something went wrong in the chick's early development.  We shall never know and it doesn't really matter.  The end result was the same. 

Things are continuing to look good in Box1. 

Here Chloe is on the nest and Chris has brought food for the chicks.  First he passes it to Chloe.

Often the male will wait until the hen feeds the chicks, but this time Chris leaves the nest box even before Chloe has got off the nest cup!

However, she does that ...

 ... and gives the food to one of the chicks. 

She then does a bit of 'nestkeeping'.  During this process, which involves her diving down to the bottom of the nest cup in order to remove any dirt or parasites, the chicks have to fend for themselves as they get pushed unceremoniously out of the way.

You can see several chicks being squeezed by Chloe as the trawls the bottom of the nest cup.

Finally, she settles back on the nest cup again.

 

 

Monday 11th May, 2020

I keep counting the beaks in the hope of finding another chick, but I am getting increasingly confident that there are no more than 6 of them.  Three infertile eggs out of 9 is an unusually large number.

They are in very different positions here, but there are still only 6 of them.

 

 

Tuesday 12th May, 2020

All the chicks seem to have survived another day.  The sixth can just be seen partly covered by Chloe's breast.