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| March 8, Preliminary inspection. |
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| March 17, A second look. |
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| March 20, back again. |
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| April 1, starting to build a nest. |
April 3, bringing more grass, and
sleeping the night. |
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| April 10, taking shape. |
May 1, The first egg? |
May 2, and another. |
| After laying the first egg, she left the
nest overnight. Since then, she only sits the eggs at
night-time, covering them up during the day. Is this
sufficient to incubate the chicks? We shall have to wait
and see. |
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| May 5, 5 eggs now. |
May 6, night-time. |
May 7, 7 eggs. |
May 7, covering them up. |
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| May 9, 9
eggs, and she is leaving them during the day. |
May 10,
10 eggs, and she's now sitting them during the day. |
May 22, still sitting. |
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| May 22, the first chick. Not easy to see,
but with its beak wide open, to the left of the bottom
egg. |
May 23, 5 chicks
this morning, and Dad helps with the food. |
May 24, a lot of mouths to
feed. One egg remains unhatched. |
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| May 27, growing daily. |
May 29, 5 open mouths. |
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| June 1. Unfortunately, the cold weather
seems to have taken its toll. This morning, she didn't
leave the nest as usual to forage for food, presumably
preferring to stay and try to keep her chicks warm. It
looked like there may have been only four chicks moving
about. This evening, she has left the nest. The chicks
not yet with their own feathers to keep themselves warm,
and so dependant on their mother for warmth and food have
lost the battle of survival. |
The future.
There are three nesting boxes on the back of my house,
but only one of them has a camera inside. Last year, the
blue tits used one of the boxes without the camera, and
some bumble bees took over the other one. So this year I
swapped over two of the boxes so that the box with the
camera was in the position of the box previously used by
the blue tits. I was lucky, and the box with the camera
was used by the birds.
Next year I plan to have two boxes, both equipped with
cameras. That way, there is maximum opportunity for the
blue tits, and I won't have the camera in the "wrong
box". If I am very lucky, they might both get
occupied!
Watch this space!
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