So on the day of my last post (the 14th), our female Great Tit had been incubating the 5 eggs in our camera nestbox for about 12-13 days, so I was expecting the eggs to hatch soon. Not long after I posted that, I rang home to find out what the situation with the box was. And to my surprise, they told me that they could see at least two chicks in the nestbox. They also explained that there was something rather strange about how the nest looked.
I asked them to send me a few photos and videos via Dropbox, and this is what I saw...
I know, what a complete mess, right! I have no idea whatsoever what happened between the photos and videos of the impeccably neat nest that we could see on the morning of the 14th, compared with the situation the nest was in later in the day. If you haven't seen what the nest looked like before, take a quick look at my last post in this camera nestbox diary.
From what I can see here, the nest has been completely ruined by something. The nesting material was in a real state, with no distinguishable nest cup whatsoever. It looked as though a huge clump of material had been removed from the nest and placed on top. The height of the nest had increased greatly as well, and seemed to be covering up the windows on the sides of the box, meaning there wasn't enough light in the box to record in colour. The first pictures and videos I was receiving from the box at this stage were all in black and white (using the infrared function on the camera) even though they were all recorded during the daytime. The two chicks which had hatched could barely be seen under the large layer of messy nesting material which was covering them.
My first thought was that the box may have fallen off the tree, so I asked Mum to pop outside and check that the box was still in place- which it was. So I wondered what could have possibly caused the nest to have been ruined in the way it has. My second theory was that possibly something like a Mapgie or a cat may have tried to attack the nestbox from the outside, whilst the female Great Tit was inside, and in an attempt to defend the nest she may have got quite agitated and messed up the nest by accident. I then decided that this probably wasn't the situation either. I doubt that the female Great Tit could have caused this much damage to the nest, even if she was being very defensive.
My final thought, and the one which I think possibly is the right one is that another small bird managed to get into the box and ruin the nest and attack the eggs. I searched online for any other records of this and found this video on youtube of a House Sparrow destroying 5 Blue Tit eggs in a camera nestbox, as well as this video of a House Sparrow killing some Blue Tit chicks in a nestbox. It didn't also mess up the nest in these situations, but it may have been that the messy nest in our camera nestbox has been caused by a fight between our female Great Tit trying to protect the nest, and any intruder that was attacking the nest. Other thoughts are that it could have been a rival Great Tit in the nest competing for the nest site or something, but I'm really not sure. Whatever it was seems to have destroyed the other 3 eggs/chicks that where in the nestbox, as I have still not seen more than 2 chicks in the nestbox.
The Great Tit parents were still doing their best to feed the remaining two chicks and were coming in frequently to feed them. The female was still sitting on the chicks for quite a lot of the time as they were still quite small, and also popping out occasionally to get them some food too. However, although the male Great Tit was coming in often, he was really struggling to get the food to the chicks as they were hidden under that huge layer of nesting material. He just couldn't physically get to the chicks most of the time. And when the female was sat on top of the chicks, she was also very well hidden under the nesting material and pretty inaccessible to the male who was bringing in food for her and the chicks.
Despite these difficulties, the two chicks survived the night and continued to be fed yesterday. The female has been constantly re-arranging the nesting material, and we do now have colour pictures again as the material seems to be clear of the side windows, but it still looks a complete mess. Because of this, the male was still struggling to get to the chicks to feed them, although apparently there were a few successful feeds from him, via the female. The video below shows a collection of the clips that were recorded yesterday:
Amazingly, the chicks survived the night again last night, and apparently feeding has continued throughout today as well. The male is still bringing food in which is great news. The real question is though, how long can this go on for? I'm not sure how many of the visits from the parents are actually resulting in successful feeds to the two chicks. I think the male Great Tit is pretty crucial at this stage. As the female is still sitting on the nest some of the time, and not bringing in food all the time, I'd say most of the food is coming from the male at the moment. If he were to give up on this situation now, I'd call it game over. If he sticks with it, and the chicks start to grow to a size where they can move around a bit and accept the food from the parents more readily, than this might not be a disaster just yet, it's really difficult to tell at this stage. The thing that went wrong for our Blue Tit family a couple of years ago was that the male bird disappeared and the female couldn't cope with feeding the chicks, sadly meaning the nest was a failure. I just hope the same thing doesn't happen here.
Also, my family has been out for most of today and haven't been watching the camera too much, so I'm not sure what the full situation is. But the clip below gives you an idea of what the nest looks like today, and what stage the chicks are at right now. The nest structure has improved a little more, and the parents seem to be able to find the chicks better under that pile of nesting material. The other good thing is that there seems to be plenty of insect food around. The problem with this situation is not the frequency with which the parents are coming into the box with food- more that they can't seem to work out how to get the food to the chicks properly. The only other positive thing I can think of is that, with only two (I think) chicks in the nestbox, they may have a better chance of survival than if there were more left. But we really will just have to wait and see. The video below shows the male Great Tit coming in to feed the female, who then passes the food onto one of the chicks.
And these two images show the two tiny chicks in the nestbox under that layer of nesting material. As you can see, they are still really very small and vulnerable at this stage.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading and if you've left a comment over the last few days thank you for those too- I have read them. I'll be back with more soon!
1 comment:
What a dreadful thing to happen but as you say at least two have survived and this may actually be a good thing in a way (though an undoubted tragedy for their less fortunate siblings). I have my fingers crossed that the parents continue to persevere despite the problems caused by this unfortunate incident.
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