And other stories from the garden
Posted in NestCam on May 7th, 2013
We have great tit chicks in our nestbox today. I’m pretty sure that they weren’t there yesterday evening, which means they are a whole 12 days later than last year’s hatch. Here they are: Take a look at how much more advanced things were on this day last year. It’s certainly been a slow start […]
Posted in NestCam on Jun 17th, 2012
It’s never happened before, so we’d sort of stopped checking. But yesterday evening when the DVD we’d been watching came to an end the DVD player switched itself over to the nestcam. And there was a great tit sitting in clearly newly constructed nest cup. She was fidgeting a lot but it was impossible to […]
Posted in NestCam on May 14th, 2012
All the chicks have fledged. Some of them (it’s kind of difficult to count) left the nest yesterday. The rest went first thing this morning, with one chap hanging around on his own for quite a while. It’s the first time the chicks in the nest box haven’t all left on the same day. But […]
It’s really difficult to count, but it looks as if there might be nine chicks in the nest. They certainly keep the parents busy with feeding and tidying up after them. Here’s some video from today.
Posted in NestCam on May 1st, 2012
Mother and father great tit are working hard feeding the chicks and they’re growing well. They’re getting feathers and are now much more animated than they were. Here’s a short clip.
Posted in NestCam on Apr 25th, 2012
The great tit chicks had hatched this morning, a miserable, cold, wet day. They looked really floppy first thing and we were worried they might not make it because the parents couldn’t get out and find food. Sophie rushed out to buy meal worms, but we think the starlings had them all. Still, by this […]
Posted in NestCam on Apr 12th, 2012
I guess there’s a chance this isn’t what you were expecting when you clicked that link, but this is a blog post about the bird Parus major, the great tit. This year we have a pair of great tits nesting in our big brother nest box. I suppose I ought to change the name of […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.