Lucky seven

Our Camera Nestbox now has seven blue tit eggs in it! I am wondering now if perhaps tomorrow morning could see the last egg being laid. Why? Well, the female has been sitting for spells in the nest a lot during the last couple of days and I suspect she has started to incubate her eggs. The photo below shows her earlier this evening and you can see how far into the nest cup she now sits.

Once egg laying starts it definitely does not mean that nest building is over. As the eggs are laid she continues to bring in feathers and other soft material to cover them up and then as she sits in the nest cup she pulls the material towards her and in doing so makes the cup much deeper and more defined.

I really do know how lucky we have been to see eggs laid in our Nestbox once again this year. Some nests are abandoned even after an egg or two has been laid! The pupils of Pennington County Infant School in Hampshire, England who took part with a Nestbox diary for The Birdbox Project 2008 have discovered this for themselves. I live in Scotland so how do I did I hear about their Nestbox?

Searching for images is a great way to discover new websites. I was searching for blue tit eggs to find out exactly how big (or small) they actually were as they sat in the nest I am watching now. I very quickly found the perfect image on a diary entry from Pennington County Infant School. They were able to measure the abandoned egg that was left in their Nestbox but I’m quite sure that they would much rather have watched it hatch!

After contacting the class they kindly gave me permission to use this photo. I would like to thank them once again as I have cropped and used it to make a montage that shows a size comparison between the blue tit egg and a medium hen’s egg. I also discovered that this egg is smaller than a five pence piece – now that puts it into perspective!

Now that I had this image, after a bit of juggling with photo sizes, I also used it to make another montage that shows the approximate size of the nest cup in my nest at the moment too. I found that very interesting and I hope the pupils at Pennington do too.



I also hope that I can share more Nestbox footage with these pupils too and that next year they get to experience this for themselves in their own Nestbox. I think it is wonderful that some school children are getting this fantastic opportunity to see nature so closely.

Finally, I cannot leave this post without sharing one more size comparison with eggs. Recently I discovered a news item on the BBC News Website reading: Chicken lays super-sized egg where ‘Chicken owners David and Julie Hewitt have spoken of their surprise at finding an egg the size of a tennis ball on their farm in Cornwall.’ Wow, what a shock that must have been for the hen too!



Thanks once again to Pennington County Infant School for allowing the use of their blue tit egg measurement photo. The photo of the oversized egg was cropped from the video on the BBC News.

Spring brings...

…daisies, dandelion seeds and clover. It also heralds the start of the flower shows. Chelsea Flower Show is world renowned however it is not the first of the RHS Flower Shows here in the UK. Last weekend the very popular Malvern Spring Gardening Show was enjoyed by many. I saw this show via a BBC television programme for Gardeners' World and thought you might like to see it too.

This broadcast can be seen on BBC iplayer and is available for another 4 days. The file size is 600MB to download if you are interested in watching this programme. I thought this may be of particular interest to visitors outside the UK. This is also how I intend sharing the coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show. You will be able to see it as I see it this year – unless of course you plan on visiting it and if so have a great time! However, coming back to Malvern I do know a man who did visit this show!

Border Reiver has recently started a garden blog, Dancing Jack in the Green, but he probably known more for his wildlife blog Quicksilverbirds blog. I am looking forward to sharing in other garden visits he makes throughout the year. For all those interested in hedgehogs they visit his garden too. I have added his Garden Blog to my links on the sidebar so you can keep up with his garden and visits too. You can see his visit to Malvern here and can enlarge his photos as I did. My favourite was photo number 12 – just my sort of planting. Thanks, Border for sharing your visit with us all. I am certain I won’t be the only one interested in future postings on your new garden blog – good luck with it and happy gardening!

The photo above was taken on a riverside walk along the River Tay yesterday.

Eggs three and four

Saturday morning saw the third egg in our Camera Nestbox and quite a clear view too when I first looked. However, looking in today it was a bit tricky to see if there was a fourth egg or not. Although she is laying one egg per day it is possible she could have a morning off. I eventually had a clearer view as you can see below. The black and white photo was taken at 6pm tonight. I have noticed that later in the evening the eggs are uncovered. So for the moment things are going as expected in our Nestbox.


What I have also noticed this year is that the male is much more attentive. I have seen him feeding the female on many occasions. Eventually I caught some footage in the Nestbox yesterday. You will notice in the video below that the female appears to know when the food is coming. Is she saying ‘Hurry-up’ or ‘Thank-you’?

The male made repeated visits in this occasion. Notice that on one delivery he stayed longer. The female clearly didn’t get all the food he had to offer and instead of eating the rest himself he waited for her to take it. His job was done. Off he went for more! This year the pair really appear to be 'a pair' so that makes me feel quite positive for them.



However, and this is a HUGE however I have not seen a single caterpillar being fed to the female. I had never thought about this until I received a comment on my last post that mentioned ‘beaks brimming with green caterpillars’ going into a Nestbox to feed chicks. I wasn’t considering caterpillars yet as we have no chicks but I’m sure the male would bring them to the female if there were any. Mm… I have to confess I have now gone from positive to worried.

You would think that the birds would adapt if they couldn’t find caterpillars to feed their young. They tried all sorts of bugs last year. Let’s hope that my Ivies can supply plenty of spiders and other insects and that my contribution of two roses planted near the Nestbox will have insects interested in them.

I also hope that I get a lot of blossom on my pieris shrubs this year as I have seen the blue tits at these flowers in past years I guess there must be insects there too. Last year wasn’t good for the pieris in my garden but it is looking good at the moment with lots of red foliage. I dearly hope this will all be enough. Having a camera in a Nestbox doesn’t mean its all happy viewing as you share the sadness with the pair too. Fingers crossed once again.

The photos and video above were taken in the camera nestbox in my garden on may 10th &1tth 2008.

Second egg laid in Nestbox

This morning I didn’t want to see two eggs when I looked in our Nestbox. Instead I was up early at 5am hoping to see the female sitting in the nest cup ready to lay her second egg! Last year they were laid around 5.30am so I thought I was up early enough. Ah... but she was awake early too!

I was just in time as after approx 3mins of looking in the Nestbox I recognised the behaviour from last year when I watched the second egg being laid then too. The female was typically breathing quite fast and then was seen pushing the tail end of her body down into the nest cup. She pushed lower and lower then lifted the tail up to reveal a second egg! What a clever girl.

Last year the female didn’t spread her wings as I saw this morning. Neither did she take quite as long ‘adjusting’ herself. Mm… I am wondering if the female this year has more than 8 eggs. This year’s Mum-to-be didn’t appear to breath quite as heavily prior to egg laying as the female last year either. She also didn’t have a nap afterwards. This does look more hopeful. I am guessing we don’t have a first time Mum. I am also still wondering if she is the same female from last year.

It is absolutely fascinating to be able to watch nature quite so closely. Without cameras like this we have no idea of what goes on. Oh… sorry didn’t I say? I have video footage to show you too.



This year’s male blue tit is very attentive. I’ve yet to capture him feeding the female but I’ve seen him doing so in the garden and leaving the nest box. I also see him trying to come in at night to find her asleep. He is also on guard in my garden still chasing away other birds. He gave me grief at the beginning of the week sitting on a tree branch above me as I was clearing my shed – what a racket he made!

He now appears when I am in the garden but sometimes he is just heard singing his little heart out. He has also called and called for the female when she has been out of the Nestbox. Let’s hope between them they find enough food to feed their chicks this year. It was so sad to watch them look in vain last year and resort to bringing in sunflower hearts – which was not at all suitable and they nearly choked one tiny days old chick as we watched.

Today, BBC News reported on their webpage on how the Great tit has adapted to our changing climate. I thought it might be of interest to some readers. Below I’ve included some excerpts from their page. You can read the full article here.

“Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars. Writing in the journal Science, they point out that the same birds in the Netherlands have not managed to adjust.”

“Three years ago, Marcel Visser from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology in Heteren collated a number of these cases. The North American wood warbler has not adapted its migration pattern to the earlier emergence of caterpillars in its breeding ground, and the Dutch honey buzzard is also failing to adapt to the earlier appearance of wasps, which it eats. The red admiral butterfly is arriving on the UK's shores earlier from its winter grounds in north Africa; but the staple food of its larvae, the common nettle, continues to flower at the same time each year."

"The great tits are laying eggs now about two weeks earlier in the year than they were 47 years ago. The timing is crucial, because for the two-week period after they hatch, the chicks have to gobble down huge quantities of winter moth caterpillars which only emerge for a short period."

"Great tits have eight or nine babies in a brood, and each of them will eat about 70 caterpillars a day. The chicks hatch and are fully grown within two weeks, so they need something that's really abundant - that's why they synchonise their breeding so hatching co-incides with the emergence of the caterpillars."

"Their movement to an earlier breeding time does not involve an evolutionary change, the scientists believe - it is simply that individual birds are able to change their behaviour, in the same way that they have presumably adapted to warmer or cooler phases before the era of human-induced global warming."

""The UK finding is to some extent surprising in that the birds are using the same old rules, but the rules still work," he told BBC News."

I wonder what rules the smaller blue tits in my garden are using this year. The female has laid her first egg 8 days later than last year. As this is only the second year that we have had a Nestbox with a camera and the third year of having a Nestbox in the garden I have no idea what ‘normal’ dates and times are.

However as a gardener I feel we can try to help nesting birds by providing a wide variety of trees, shrubs and other plants both wild and cultivated in our gardens. I have tried to help this year by buying two climbing roses especially with the blue tits in mind. I am a gardener that is looking for greenfly on rose buds this year!!

Finally, to all gardeners and visitors looking for postings on plants. garden birds and wildlife please do continue to visit as I don’t intend all postings to be on the Nestbox until nesting is over. There will definitely be times when there will be daily postings on the Nestbox. However, I will try to make them short and will include postings on other happenings in my garden too. I also need to spend more time in my ‘actual’ garden too. Ah… this is a great time of year to be lucky enough to have a garden. Enjoy yours this weekend!

The photo above was taken at 4pm this afternoon and the video footage between 5.05 am and 5.20am this morning.

Let the count begin…

If you are a regular visitor you may have guessed by now that my estimate of an egg in our Camera Nestbox on Monday was well out. Our nesting blue tits have been ten days behind last year. However I really did feel that they would eventually catch up.

You will also be very aware of the hard work our nesting female has made of making her nest and it was hard to tell for sure that she would ever complete it. However, since Monday she has made excellent progress!

The photos in the montage above were taken left to right starting on May 2nd with the last taken on the 5th. The larger photo was taken on May 6th. All photos were taken between 7.30am and 9am. During the day the condition of the nest would change. The female is still roosting and you can now see that she has finally made the cup of her nest.

To line the nest cup she has brought in what looks like hair of some sort and short strands of wool. The odd small feather has come in too. It really is a work of art! Yesterday didn’t see too much difference to the nest but in the evening she was more unsettled as she roosted. So what about this morning….


I am absolutely EGGSTATIC to announce that we have the first egg for 2008!! Sorry, I kept you waiting for this news… a break in internet connection during posting hasn’t helped! Anyway back to the nest…

This morning I was very lucky to see the egg as clearly as you can see in the photo above. Just 45 mins later when I looked in the Nestbox it was covered again and then again until the last photo below shows it just over two hours later. I did look again in the nestbox around lunchtime and the egg was completely hidden!

Now, if I hadn’t looked in first thing this morning I really would not have seen there was an egg there at all. Early evening the egg became more visible for a while again prior to the female settling down and roosting over it.

So what has she been doing in the nest today? Same old same old… bring material in and out and shuffling in the nest. Although, I have to say she has longer periods away from the nest now. I expect she will be enjoying her freedom for the next week or so.




The video above shows her shuffling over her egg. Now the count has started and I wonder how many eggs she will lay. We had eight last year so I guess it will be around that number. I so hope they all hatch and the chicks survive this year – fingers crossed.

The photos and video shown above were taken from my Camera Nestbox.