They thought it was all over !!

Well. I must admit, I was a little surprised when they all just left without saying goodbye. Today, they came back. 3 baby Great Tits, still needing feeding by mum. Then one came and sat on the window right in front of me! He said "thank you", and a few other things I wasn't able to translate, then flew off. Photos include "Bird on a Wire" being fed, A chick on the window and fence, and the one on the window being fed.

Final Post :-(

Well, I cleaned out the box today. Took it all down ready to take to Canada with us as i dont want anyone nesting at the beginning of next year meaning we cant take it. We may not be allowed to take it, normally anything that lives "Outside" is not risked in case it carries germs.
Anyway, took a photo of the egg with a 20p coin.
Thank you for watching. As we have helped add 4 great tits into the world, (less the one that died trying to look after these ones) if you see a Great Tit in your garden, odds are its one of ours, so say "hi" from all of us here.

All Gone !!

Well, yesterday morning they were there. yesterday afternoon they were gone. Quite gutted to have missed to mass exit but thats part and parcel of this. Just need to clean the box out. Will post a photo of the egg i think......

2 chicks haven't made it

Well, the 4 strong chicks were obviously too much for the little ones.
They haven't made it.
This video shows the 4 stronger birds and the are developing really well.
You can see the bodies of the two that didn't make it on the floor of the nest.

Mum is trying her best !

At first I thought the mum had been taken but as the remaining bird is spending the nights in the nest, it must have been the dad.
Mum is working hard to keep the chicks fed but it is a relentless task, as I am sure it would be for 2 adults, let alone 1.
We do have 4 chicks stronger than the other 2 which now means the other 2 are pushed to the bottom/back where they get little food if any. This then causes them to be weak and not develop as much, which gets them in a catch-22 situation.
Not sure if we can do anything to help. We have bought some meal worms to try and help the mum get some food quickly to more chicks but we cant find a good place to put them where they will be taken by our birds, and not all the others in the garden!

The Accused

After a little hunt I found this picture of a sparrow hawk. This looks enough like pigeon colours to make me believe this was what hit the window and flew off with our Great Tit. All 6 chicks look fine this morning.

Bad News !!!

I am fairly sure I saw our female caught and carried away by a larger bird earlier this evening. I saw a great tit hit a house window at the same time as a large bird (looked same size and colour as a pigeon but I cant believe that's what it was). I tried to get outside but by the time I did I saw two birds flying off, and I am sure 1 was carrying our female. :-( .Not Happy. Since then, over the last few hours we have had the odd visit by the male, but the visits are rare and the chicks are obviously blooming hungry when he gets here. It is really up in the air now how many will survive. The nights are still cold and the male wont be in the nest overnight with the chicks. Lets hope he can keep on top of them.....

1 week later

What a difference a week makes! I go away for a week and look at the difference. Birds very busy now all day. Feathers and "jostling for position" are now clearly visible.

New Video Feed

I have my new cable thing to capture straight to the laptop.
The babies seem to be getting big fast. Even though they are now sticking their heads up for feeding the mum still seems to have trouble finding a chick to take the food. Might be a little big......? You can also see the egg that still seems to be hanging around, but certain it wont hatch now. 5 Chicks, possibly 6. A little short of what I was expecting but then I am greedy like that :-)

Not all eggs hatched

We definitely still have at least 1 un-hatched egg, Difficult to be certain with the mass of squirming bodies or a fluffy bird sitting on them! There are at least 5 mouths, some are getting the hang of feeding, some still need encouragement to stick their head up.

On a slightly separate note, I am waiting to get my hands on a lead which I can use to put the feed directly into my laptop, which should enable some better pictures, fingers crossed.

1st Video

This is me trying to see if I can capture video. My apologies for the quality but it is a web cam off my TV. The brightness on some areas seems a bit too much but for me the main event is still captured.
Mum feeding babies
Dad turns up with food, doesn't seem to be able to get the kids to eat.
Dad gives food to mum
Mum feeds kids
Dad removes food from kids mouth & gives back to mum
Mum waits till Dad leaves and re-feeds the kids.

Chicks !!

Today is the day some of the eggs have hatched. There are still a couple of eggs that have yet to hatch but as they were not all laid in the same day they may well hatch over the next two days. They are not really able to raise their necks yet so the mum is having to almost "force feed" them.

The Sleeping Bird

Just so you can see how little a sleeping Great Tit, actually looks like a Great Tit

Nesting Continues

She is spending a lot more time on the nest and is being fed by the male.

Its been a while but we have seen both birds again today. The male popped in to feed the female while she was sitting on the eggs.

21st April

We now have 7 eggs. should be around beginning of May for them to hatch.

Apologies for the quality of the photo, we are using an iphone taking a photo of our TV picture. Best we can do.

20th April

We now have 6 eggs. Apparently they will lay up to 12 eggs adding extras each day.

April 19th

Spotted something which looked like eggs very early on but the nest was covered the rest of the day. Later that evening we did see 5 eggs.

18th April

Not seen much activity but the nest is getting more full and the Female is still spending the night.

14th April

Still nest building but now there is enough there that the Female (we assume) is spending the night.

12th April

Still building the nest. Fascinating to watch how they do it.

11th April

Both Birds Spotted building nest. Trying to work out how to tell them apart. Adam is thinking of possible names for them. To assist we tried taking a photo but haven't seen much of them to get photos of both.

10.47am

2 Birds spotted in and out of the Nest. Constantly in and out nest building

10.00 am

First complete look at the bird and its a Great Tit. Definitely nest building.

Day 1 - 10th April 9.40 am

First Noticed a bird entering the bird box at 9.40 Plugged the camera int the TV and waited for it to come back. It looked like there had been some activity but needed to see it !

Start Up

Hopefully this is the second Blog I am setting up. This one will track the progress of our bird box which has been populated in April 2009