Great Tit Chicks Still Going Well (17th-18th May)

It's been a few days since the chicks hatched in our camera nestbox on the 14th. The nest, which looked as though it had been attacked by something only contained two tiny chicks, the others which we presumed had died, or the eggs destroyed before they had hatched. The situation didn't look promising at all for the two remaining chicks, as the parents were struggling to feed the chicks hidden under the pile of messed up nesting material. The male especially, couldn't seem to feed the female, who wasn't particularly good at accepting the food which was being brought in to be passed onto the chicks. The amount of feeds from the parents was still quite high, and it seemed as though there was actually plenty of insect food to feed the chicks. 

Fast forward to now (the 18th), and amazingly, the two remaining chicks are still alive and both being fed by the parents. They are growing very slowly in size however. They are now 5 days old (including the day that they hatched), and they're still not an awful lot bigger than they were when they hatched. Maybe the attack on the nest caused the eggs to hatch slightly prematurely, and the chicks were smaller than they should have been. The video below shows a couple of feeds from the parents on the 17th. 

  

And the next video shows the situation of the nest on the 18th. As you can see, the video is in black and white, even though it was recorded in bright conditions in the late afternoon. So it seems as though the nesting material was covering the windows on either side of the nestbox again, stopping enough light getting into the box for colour images. Hopefully this won't last too long though, and things will be back to normal before too long.  



That's all for today's update. I just want to keep things ticking over here so that I don't have tons of stuff to get through. Thanks for reading and I'll probably be back with another video tomorrow, as things are at a pretty crucial stage right now. 

Camera Nestbox Disaster!

I left you with some relatively calm images from our camera nestbox a couple of days ago, where our female Great Tit was still incubating 5 eggs with the male Great Tit feeding her frequently. Well I think it's safe to say things have changed fairly significantly since then. And it's not been good change either...

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.

I will keep you posted as much as I can on what is going on with this nestbox, however exams are my priority right now and so I will really mostly be focussed on these over the nest few days. I will get round to replying to comments, and commenting on other people's blogs as soon as I can, but I just wanted to get this post out today before it turned into too much of a task to keep things updated. As it is this post is a lot longer than I expected it would be. 

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! 

Great Tit Still Incubating Eggs (May 11th-14th)

Just another quick update on the Great Tit nest. Things still seem to be going pretty well, with the female still incubating eggs and the male feeding her frequently. She's been incubating the eggs now since the 1st/2nd of May, so the eggs will hatch out anytime in the next day or two I reckon, as incubation usually lasts 12-14 days. In case you missed it, I added a post for the 10th May showing all the stuff that's been going on in the time between the 5th and the 10th. And this video basically shows what's been going on the last few days.

I compiled the video below with some of the clips I've been getting through Dropbox. Because of exams at the moment, everything is kind of getting thrown together at the moment, so none of these posts are particularly great, but I want to keep things as updated as possible. So yeah, here's the video I put together, watch in 480p if you can :D 



That's all for today's post really, just another quick update. Will be back with more soon :D

Nestbox Update (5th-10th May)

Just a quick update on the situation with the Great Tit nestbox at home. Been getting video files through Dropbox since my last post, but upcoming exams have stopped me from uploading them and posting on my blog. The video below shows a few of the things which have been going on over the last few days. Quite a bit of the footage is in black and white as it was recorded early in the morning or in the evening. 

Basically our Great Tit female is still incubating the 5 eggs in the box, and has been since around the 2nd of May. So it will only be a few days before the chicks begin to hatch. The male Great Tit has apparently been feeding her very frequently, and a couple of these feeds are in the video below. My family aren't watching the camera all the time, so the fact that they've recorded the male feed the female so many times really shows how often he visits. Hopefully this will bode well for when the eggs hatch and there are chicks to feed too. 



Since I made that video a couple of days ago, I've received a few more clips via Dropbox, so I'll sort those out and probably upload those later today. I didn't want to combine the two posts, as it's been quite a while since my last post and I thought it would be good to split up the footage over two posts. Because of this, I've posted this post for the 10th May when the video was put together, even though all the text was written on the 12th. Congratulations if you're still following what I'm saying here!

Anyway, back off to do some more work now, got exams coming up very soon so have limited time for blogging. Thanks for reading and catch you later :) 

Male feeds female Great Tit

Just a quick update on the camera nestbox today. Got a picture sent through on Dropbox yesterday showing the male Great Tit feeding the female whilst she was on the nest- remember I'm not actually at home to view all this action, my family are sending me videos and pictures from the nestbox via Dropbox to me here at uni which, so far is working very well. But it does mean that quite a bit of the time, no one is watching the camera to report on what's going on all the time. So although this was the first recorded time the male has fed the female, it could well be that it's happened a few times before this without being noticed. 

The picture below isn't very good but it clearly shows what's going on. I'm really not sure why the "take picture" option on the capture program produces such poor quality images but hopefully I'll be able to work that out sometime.

Since this happened, I've been told that the male has been into the box quite a few times to feed her, which is good news. I was pleased to get an (albeit short) video this morning showing the male Great Tit feeding the female again. This is the first time it's been recorded on video was really nice to see. Not sure what he feeds her but it looks like some kind of insect to me.  



I may well update this post as the day goes on with more videos/photos as I get them, but I just wanted to get this post done early-ish so I could get on with some work in the afternoon. 

Enjoy the rest of your bank holiday weekend :D

Still 5 Eggs

It seems the Great Tit clutch is finished at 5 eggs in our camera nestbox, as there wasn't another egg laid today. I think the female had already skipped a day at some point, so 5 looks like the final number. 

This seems unusually low to me, but a look online suggested that somewhere between 5 and 12 eggs are normal, so it seems we're just at the bottom end of this scale. I also know that nests in gardens or more urban areas in general tend to contain less eggs. Our Blue Tit nest in 2011 contained 7 eggs and this was a little lower than average too I think. I suppose it gives the parents a better chance of raising the chicks when they hatch, as there will be less mouths to feed. 

I was at home today briefly, as I needed to get a couple of things done back home, so I was able to watch the nest for much of the day. Our female Great Tit seems to be incubating the eggs properly now, and is on the nest around 70% of the time during the day, and then obviously all night when she is roosting. She seems to fidget around rather a lot, not looking comfortable for too long, just as our Blue Tit female did a couple of years ago. Watch in 480p if you can :)

Later on in the day I decided to try and record the Great Tit going into the nestbox from outside in the garden. So I left my capture program recording the inside of the nestbox while I set up my camera on a tripod outside and started recording on that. I hadn't actually got a proper view of the Great Tits going into the box before I recorded this video, and I hadn't quite realised how much of a squeeze it is for them to get through the hole. The metal protector on the front of the box has a 28mm hole, which is supposed to be suitable for Great Tits, but it seems a slightly larger hole might be better. 

Anyway, the video I managed is below. Watch in 720p if you can :) 



One thing I haven't seen yet is the male feeding the female whilst she's on the nest. As you can see in the video above, the female calls for him quite a bit, but he doesn't come in to feed her. He does however visit the garden quite a lot, and it might be that he has fed her outside the nest. 

I'm back at uni now this evening, so I'll be sent any photos/videos via dropbox over the next few days again. Anyway, thanks for reading and enjoy your weekend :) 

Nestbox Diary 2013 Update - 5 Eggs

For a few reasons, particularly work, I've been unable to post anything about what's going on in the camera nestbox over the last few days, but I've still been receiving images captured by the rest of the family back home via Dropbox and I'm happy to say the last few days seem to have gone pretty smoothly. 

There are now a total of 5 eggs in the nestbox, and the female Great Tit has started incubating the eggs. I don't think this is the end of the clutch yet but I could be wrong. I do know that garden birds have a tendency to lay fewer eggs, as there is a lower chance that the chicks will survive (our Blue Tits only laid 7 eggs when we followed them a couple of years ago). There were 2 or 3 eggs in the box on the 29th. So its possible that, if there were 2 eggs at this point, she has laid an egg a day since then or, if there were 3 eggs by this point, she has skipped out one day sometime between then and now. 

The only thing I've been receiving on Dropbox today has been images, as they are much quicker to upload and don't slow the internet down too much at home. The images below were all captured today at various points. 

And finally, a picture of the female asleep for the night: 

I may actually be back home on Saturday as I need to be home for a couple of things, so I should be able to give a more detailed update on what's going on when I get back. Until then, thanks for reading and have a nice evening :D