And other stories from the garden
May 7th, 2008 by sophie
There are seven chicks and one unhatched egg. They are growing at an amazing rate and seem more vigorous every day. They look a little more fluffy now. Karma and Buzz are very busy, diligent parents, feeding the little ones dozens of times an hour. Karma sits rather heavily on them a lot and they appear to be objecting to this now! Here’s a bit more film from this morning.
We have babies. Well Karma and Buzz do actually. There were eight eggs and we think we have counted seven chicks, but it is very difficult. There was one egg left until late this afternoon, but that has disappeared, so hopefully there are now eight.
Buzz has been in and out feeding all day, while Karma has alternated between sitting on the chicks and going out for food. Here’s some bits of film from through the day.
Apr 27th, 2008 by Chris
Karma has now been sitting on her eight eggs for about a week, although the first few days she was a bit on and off. Even now she pops out quite regularly. We’re a bit surprised by this. We imagined she would sit continuously and be fed by Buzz, but it seems not.
Buzz does occasionally pop in with a snack for her though. Here’s a clip…
Apr 23rd, 2008 by sophie
The last few days have been a little odd. There have been no more eggs since Saturday, when we thought Karma started sitting. The weather then was cold and wet and it seemed rather unpromising. Since then she has spent the morning out of the nest, popping back regularly for brief visits, then settling in for the long haul from about midday, only leaving the nest briefly through the rest of the day. Today has been different and she has spent more or less the whole day on the nest with short excursions, presumably for food. The weather has improved markedly too- warm and sunny at last- I wonder if that has anything to do with Karma’s behaviour.
It seems that Karma started sitting yesterday lunch time. It seems a bit early and cold to me, but hopefully she knows what she’s doing!
Apr 18th, 2008 by sophie
Karma has laid an egg every morning for the last 7 days and is spending every night in the box. How do you sleep comfortably on 7 eggs?
Apr 13th, 2008 by Chris
As expected, when we checked this morning there was a second egg in the nest. Imagine our horror then when we turned on the television this evening to find the eggs gone! Or were they?
Closer inspection revealed that Karma had carefully hidden them using feathers. Not so much buried them, as camouflaged them. She’s been in and out most of the day, often bringing in new feathers or rearranging feathers to get just the effect she wants. By late this afternoon they were almost impossible to distinguish from their surroundings on the black and white camera.
Well it’s definately the female in the nest! Thanks to Phil, and his comment on ‘Overnight Stay’, we realised that the roosting bird is Karma not Buzz and early this morning she produced egg number one. Apparently she will lay one a day until she decides there are enough and then she’ll start incubating them all at the same time. She’s continued to sleep in the nest every night and visit through the day to tinker with the nest. Since laying her egg her visits have been less frequent and just quick pop ins to check all is well.
Here’s a clip of the first sight of the egg.
and here’s Karma popping back to check everything’s OK during the day
Apr 6th, 2008 by sophie
The nest building has progressed really fast this week—it looks almost finished, with a lovely feather lining. We’ve been away for the weekend and hadn’t seen any of the weekend’s recordings, so were very excited to see one of the tits come in to the box to roost for the night at about 7.30pm! Looking back to the early recording from this morning he was there then too, but not yesterday. I’m pretty certain that it’s Buzz, the male, which seems weird as it was Karma who built the nest. Maybe she’ll get to spend quite enough time in it soon, so he gets to guard it overnight meanwhile. Or maybe I’m wrong and it is the female after all!
Here’s a bit of video of him settling down for the night, then waking up and having a little stretch in the morning.
Apr 2nd, 2008 by sophie
The day after the threatened invasion of the great tit and Karma has been very busy nest building. Sometimes it looks more as though she’s burrowing in the moss, but we think the ‘nesting shuffle’ is intended to push the nesting material to the edges of the box. What she has against some bits is a mystery—maybe they just don’t make it in the comfort stakes. Thankfully no further sign of the Dastardly Great Tit.