So much for one egg a day. Like the proverbial bus, you wait around over a year for an egg to appear, then three tun up at once...
You can imagine the excitement that they caused!
She is roosting on top of them tonight - I thought she might stay away until the clutch was complete and she started incubating them. However, they are laid on the bare floor, so maybe that will keep them cool for now? We are learning day by day...
Little to report. All in order - both birds visiting regularly, female still roosting and still finessing the nest. Male seems very attentive despite his scruffy appearance, so we are still hopeful he will pull his weight.
We are worried about the volume of food available in the garden (10 chicks x 100 caterpillars per day per chick), and are looking at options to provide fresh wax worms. Sounds delicious!
Here is a quick snap of the increasingly fluffy nest...
Firstly a very big welcome to any girls from Putney High junior school who have logged on to see how our nest box is coming along. If our Blue Tit lays eggs and they hatch I will be coming into an assembly to show you some clips and tell you what I have learnt about these amazing birds. I'm looking forward to that very much.
Secondly, a regular viewer from Sheffield asked a question I meant to answer the other day but forgot. What was the bird doing pecking so much a few days ago - she appears to want to become a woodpecker?! The answer is she is drilling out any soft wood to check that the box she has chosen is sound. Blue Tit nests are very vulnerable to Jays, squirrels, weasels and other predators, and that is all part of the prospecting process.
Our first video clips today is from very early this morning. Our roosting female has been hard at it building the nest for the last few days and wants a lie in. The male however is ready to start the day at 5:30am. He was caught having just paid a visit, and moves outside to serenade her. Several minutes later (don't worry, I've edited them out) he's still sticking his head in to try and get her up. She is having none of it...
And to finish, a slow motion clip (half speed) of some nest building action. I have slowed it down so you can see the material she is bringing in. Some more fascinating behaviour I've not seen before - she is jumping up and down on the nest. Is she knocking it into shape, or just bouncing on the bed for fun?!
Well, I now feel guilty for ever doubting her. She's put in the hardest days work of her short life, and went straight to sleep this evening. Here is a brief clip of building in action to show progress...
She's got the hang of it now, and what a beautiful day for it! Just a short clip (at 4x speed) taken about 16:20 to show where she has got to. Looking good...
So, Saturday afternoon - the rain is now tipping down, and every sensible Blue Tit in SW London is sheltering somewhere else. However, lots to report, and the signs are looking good...
Firstly, she is still roosting every night. We thought once it got warmer she might stop, but she has come in every night for the last two weeks. She is getting slightly later each evening, and makes frequent trips in and out before settling down. I won't waste your bandwidth - the videos below are completely typical.
Secondly, we are now Blue Tit experts, having devoured the excellent British Tits by Christopher Perrins. I think it is out of print, but Amazon sell a Kindle version, and it is compulsive reading. Best of all it explains a number of things we have seen - starting with the fact that the female roosts in the nest box for a couple of weeks prior to nesting!
One other behavioural feature Perrins describes is the way the female rubs her stomach on the floor and pushes the nesting material to the side with her feet. Perfectly demonstrated in today's nest building clip:
And yes, that is firstly a shed load of nesting material you see, and secondly it is quite different in nature from the pieces of moss she has been taking in and out for the last week or so.
We have concluded that we have new Blue Tits - this is their first breeding season, and they are having to work everything out from first principles. They appear to be getting the hang of it though, and they are around for big chunks of the day.
Finally, our nest box is now part of a real scientific survey. The British Trust for Ornithology have a nest box survey, and we are contributing daily data. Anyone can help, so if you have a box, here is the link...
Lots of activity over the last few days, although this evening the box is still completely empty of nesting material. It was much warmer today (as high as 10 degrees C!), and at a mid morning check we saw plenty of material.
However, immediately after (and just like every other day), over the next hour every scrap of moss was removed. Here is the action with the dull bits edited out and speeded up to crack through an hour in three and a half minutes...
But better news a) they are still interested (that drumming action is either a wannabe woodpecker or serious prospecting), b) they aren't taking the material anywhere else, just dropping it outside the box, and c) I have found this blog which describes very similar behaviour last year.
The entry for 9th April shows material being taken out and by 12th proper building was in progress. Although the blog stops abruptly after Dad had stopped showing up, they at least got to the hatching stage.
And finally, we are still providing overnight accommodation for the eighth night in a row. Slightly later tonight, settling down about 19:20. Here's some more rapid play footage (guess what I learned on iMovie today).
Thanks to those clever people at logmein.com we have managed to get a fair amount of footage during the Easter break despite being in Sheffield. Lot's of depressing footage of grand larceny, with what looks like competing Blue Tits - one pretty incompetent one making half hearted attempts to stockpile moss, the other stealing it away.
But, that aside, we now have an overnight lodger!
This is the third night that the box is occupied by a roosting Blue Tit, and better still, look at this odd behaviour we captured tonight...
Our black-splotches-on-his-cheek pops in, checks everything is all right, before summoning his mate. Twenty seconds later, in she comes, and gets ready to settle down for the night.
She spent about four of five minutes shuffling round, obviously slowing down, before doing that amazing thing Blue Tits do to keep warm at night - blow themselves up. Apologies for the longish clip, but she starts underneath, with her downy feathers expanding to trap air, before inflating her back feathers and sticking her head under her wing. Nifty to say the least...
It is now April, and if these characters don't get on with it very soon, we are going to draw a blank this year too. Roosting is a good start though - we are still hoping for some nest building action!!
