And other stories from the garden
Jun 9th, 2010 by Chris
At last. Our wild flower meadow finally has a decent show of wild flowers. It’s taken several years. We originally seeded it in 2008, just after the garden makeover. We’ve added more flower seed since then, and a bunch of plugs, and now in its third season it’s actually starting to look like a meadow.
The babies fledged over about two hours yesterday morning. The first one had gone before the recording started, but this film shows the rest of them going. I’ve managed to get it down to about ten minutes. The parents were in and out throughout and went back several times after the babies had gone, just to be sure!
May 27th, 2010 by Chris
The blue tit chicks all fledged today. By the time the recorder came on (about 6:30 I think) one had already gone. It was well over two hours later by the time the last one left the nest box, with big gaps between each one. Which doesn’t really make for a nice snappy video clip I’m afraid! Besides, I’ve been out dancing and don’t have time to sort the video out this evening.
It’s late. They went on May 19th last year and on May 23rd in 2008. They’re 22 days old now, which is also the longest we’ve had them stay in the nest. They fledged at 20 days last year, and 19 the year before. We really expected them to go yesterday; they’d been jumping up and looking out at the world a lot the day before. Must be quite a sight when you’ve only ever seen the inside of wooden box.
Maybe we’ll try and get some film up tomorrow. There was a plan to post a bit the other day, but, er, technical difficulties resulted in everything we’ve ever recorded on the recorder’s hard drive disappearing 
May 17th, 2010 by Sophie
There are seven chicks and they’re looking very different in this film to the last one. Their eyes are open, they’re stretching their wings, competing for space and food, being fed very frequently. Oh yes, and pooing frequently too.
May 5th, 2010 by Chris
Turning the telly on this morning we saw a single chick in the nest. By the time I got home from work there were five. Or at least I think there were. They’re kind of difficult to count—but there were still three eggs of the eight left unhatched.
It’s later than we’ve had before, by a small margin. Last year they hatched on April 29, whilst in 2008 it was May 4. They’ve always managed to hatch whilst the recorder has been off before, but this year we recorded most of the day. So here’s some highlights.
We start off with one of the parents apparently eating the shell of a newly hatched chicks. Later one poor soul gets his head stuck in a shell for a good long while. This is seriously edited—he must have been left the shell on his head for a good eight minutes or so! There are four hatchings in here altogether, so it’s over 10 minutes of video.