Feeding time!

The Blue Tits are still feeding their young, but with increased frequency. The young have now taken to sticking their heads up at the hole on the nest box, apparently impatient for their next feed, they wait and wait, for all of 10 seconds and then their parents come with a juicy aphid or piece of fatball to relieve their hunger pains!

I am assuming that these young will fledge in a few days. The weather forecast is not too great for tomorrow, so it will probably be in the middle of the week when I am at work!

A case of mistaken identity

We have a Sparrow apartment box placed on the gable end of our house that my Father-in-law made, specifically aimed at attracting House Sparrows which are a bit of a rarity in our garden. This box cannot be seen from any window or door of our house, but can be seen quite clearly from our neighbours garden.

A few weeks ago our neighbours told us that they had been observing a pair of Blue Tits coming and going from this box and just recently they told us that they had seen these birds going into the box with caterpillars. I wanted to observe this, but unlike the box in the garden (which I have detailed in previous posts) which can be seen from our patio doors, this one can only be viewed from the back of our garden. Obviously when you step out of the back door all birds in the area disappear, so I hatched a plan! We have a greenhouse situated at the back of our garden, so I decided to sit and wait in there and see if the birds would appear! As you can see from the photos below what I saw were not Blue Tits, but their larger cousins, Great Tits! This species has not nested in our garden before and so this was a very welcome sighting (another Blue Tit family would be equally exciting).

These birds are unaware that they have nested in the wrong box as I have a specific Great Tit nest box situated just round the corner, but this sparrow apartment was obviously just right for them. I wait with bated breath for the fledglings.

Encouraging signs ; Another update

Things went a bit quiet on the Blue Tit front for a while and I began to get worried, but earlier this week I noticed the pair making very frequent visits to the nest box and these visits were made with little caterpillars in their beaks!

The pair are gradually becoming slightly scruffy, to say the least, but are doing a great job in feeding their young. I have no idea of the numbers of chicks and so I will have to wait for at least a week and a half before there may be signs of fledging. Blue Tit young leave the nest when they are between 16 and 22 days old.

Encouraging signs ; An update

The Blue Tits have finally started nest building in the box they were checking out a few weeks ago. There have been a few worrying moments, most notably when the local moggy took an interest and started sitting on top of the box, hence the rather `pointy` screws in the new photo, hopefully these will keep the cats at bay without causing any hurt! Other than that the pair are doing a fine job and will hopefully in time lay some eggs. I will report again with any progress.

Encouraging signs

Yesterday morning I noticed a pair of Blue Tits prospecting the home-made nest box that is attatched to our back fence (this box was used last year by a pair of Blue Tits). They were taking it in turns to go in and out and making several journeys to and fro. I have yet to notice any nesting material being taken into the box, but I am keeping my fingers crossed!