The End

Sadly the picture from my camera Nestbox this morning shows the final two blue tit chicks leaning on each other not moving at all. Yesterday the third one died and I was most surprised to see that the female did not remove it from the nest until much later in the day. The other two chicks were climbing on top of it. I did take a photo but for my own records only. There is no need to post it or one from today.

What about the live mealworms? Well I am delighted to say that two days ago she finally discovered them and fed them to the chicks. Perhaps if I had the feeder with mealworms set up much earlier it could have helped the survival of the chicks. Who knows? I did try putting them in lots of places. She certainly ignored them for some time in the feeder dish taking the fat sprinkles instead. Still, they were available to her but in reality she could have had no help from me at all. It just goes to show how hard it can be for birds to feed their chicks.

The greenfly is thriving on my new rose but now that the blue tit doesn’t need to chase off competition from other blue, great and coal tits maybe these birds will enjoy the greenfly!

Interestingly enough there is another single blue tit with three chicks in a Nestbox featured in BBC Two’s Springwatch programme. They don’t know if it is male or female but much of the behaviour in this nest is very similar to the recent story from our Nestbox. For example the constant cleaning in the bottom of the nest and the way the chicks are being fed too - although I believe more food is going in. They suspect lice and mites in this Nestbox too. I will follow this story with interest to hear what they have to say about it and to see if these chicks are still surviving on Thursday when the programme ends its three week coverage.

I should say that the weather has certainly been on the side of our blue tit. If it had been raining all the time in the last two weeks she would have found it much harder to find food. We’ve only had the odd half day of rain.

Later today we are finally expecting rain and the garden could certainly do with it! I have not had time to post on my garden too much recently nor on the other birds that have been visiting too. Ah… the garden is looking very interesting now and my wisteria is in flower! It has a wonderful scent. I do have lots of updates on the garden and some work to do in it too! It really is a busy time of the year in the garden but soon it will be time to sit back and enjoy it with only the odd bit of very enjoyable pottering. I then will also look forward to browsing all the garden, bird and wildlife blogs that I have been unable to find time to visit recently.

Finally, I hope the rain will refresh but not stay with the gardens here in Scotland over the next couple of weeks. Yolanda at Bliss in the Netherlands is coming over to Scotland on a garden tour. I would like to wish you a great trip Yolanda and look forward to seeing your photos and reading about your garden visits on your return. Your posting on the the Edinburgh Botanical Garden, which will be looking very different from my last visit there in February, is going to be a very interesting one!

What can we see?

Well, I would have said it was against all odds that the three remaining blue tit chicks in our camera Nestbox were still alive. They are only being fed by one parent (the female) and her food deliveries are nowhere nearly often enough. I timed her over an hour during the last couple of days.

Incredibly she only brought food in nine times in the hour and sometimes only gave this to just one of the chicks - the other two were left even longer for food. In all honesty I now look in this Nestbox not really knowing what I will see.

This morning I was delighted to see that it looks like the chicks eyes are opening – this has been very interesting to watch. They are turning their heads around a lot. I expect the brighter light in the Nestbox at this time of the day will be catching them.

Something else looks like it is catching them too. I am pretty confident now that there are parasites in this nest. I know the female tidies up a lot – digging way down into the bottom of the nest. You can hear her tapping on the wood of the Nestbox floor.


However, the chicks are often seen jumping in a jerky fashion when they are on their own too. I have also been watching the biggest of the three chicks pecking under its wings as I have seen the female do. I am completely new to this stage in the Nestbox but I would guess many nests have parasites and chicks do survive.

Okay, I have one more concern for these hungry chicks – the ‘always hungry’ starlings! The tone of the chirping of the chicks is changing and getting louder and this morning they definitely responded to changes in light levels thinking the female was coming in the Nestbox – it was a starling on the roof. If the starling shows interest when the female is there then she will protect them. But if they are hungry and get the strength to get out of the nest cup… yep, you can guess what will happen next.

Finally, I am not going to predict the outcome of these chicks as now I am in completely unknown territory. They still look far too thin to me and I am guessing that they will need a lot more feeding as they get bigger. The female is still not using the live mini mealworms and doesn’t appear to have found the greenfly either. She searches the front of my Leylandii hedge yet within a metre of the Nestbox there is a pergola covered in ivy with spiders etc – the great tits search there. So what will happen next – we will just have to wait and see!

The photos above were taken from my camera nestbox on June 8th 2008.

And then there were three

I am fairly confident now that the the story of our blue tit chicks with single parent is almost over. I would love to be wrong.

The female blue tit has now found a source of some sort of wriggly food for her chicks (not my mini liver mealworms) but I fear it is too late. I think perhaps she knows this too and is giving it to the strongest chick. She is still away too long between feeds.

Usually after a feed the waste product instantly comes out the other end. She waits and watches to remove it but during most feeds now there is nothing to remove. Not a good sign. The chicks then just slide into the nest quietly when she leaves. No chirping now.

I will look in the Nestbox later today but I expect if the chicks don’t survive they could be just left there.

The photos above were taken from my camera nestbox at 7.50am on June 6th 2008.

Chirping for food

Yesterday morning there were five chicks in our blue tit Nestbox. I was really quite positive for them. They appeared strong and alert. However when I looked in the Nestbox during the evening we could only see four and they looked much less alert.

This morning we now have four chicks 11 days old. I am sure they are smaller than they should be at this stage. The female has to search for food herself and some days can leave the nest for as long as ten minutes and come back with only enough for one chick. I have no doubt if the male was around to help find food the chicks would be much bigger.



Although we have had some rain on the whole we have had warm sunny days recently which have to help the female in her search for food. The video footage shown above shows a feeding moment two days ago. You can see that the ones with bigger mouths do get more food. You can also select the button to see the video full screen. The chicks have now started to make quiet chirping sounds and make this when the female is feeding, away or even sitting on top of them!

Fat sprinkles are continuing to supplement the spiders as a food for the chicks and I have only once seen a caterpillar go in during the morning the first chicks hatched. I couldn’t see if they were interested in it or not. I introduced another feeder that took a few days for the female to explore but it has enabled me to put out live mealworms and sprinkles with the bonus that the starlings are unable to get to them. Of course they still try! I only wish the female would try the mealworms.

I am very grateful to have the feeder shown opposite. This was very kindly loaned to me by an RSPB Volunteer to use for as long as I needed it. I had been telling her about my plight to find a way to put out the mini live mealworms.

Thank-you so much Lyn! I really believe that this feeder went up at a crucial time for the chicks. I still couldn’t say if they will all survive but I know feel happier that there is at least an extra food source available for them.

Lyn also wrote down the names of two websites where I might get feeders that are especially good for smaller birds. In the first one Haith’s I spotted Lyn’s feeder so I now intend ordering one for myself and will be able to return it to her. It will be an excellent feeder when juvenile birds from other nests come to my garden.

Interestingly enough this company just contacted me this week saying that they have regular features written by Bill Oddie (bird/wildlife enthusiast and presenter) and Jenny Steel (wildlife gardener) suggesting that may be of interest to my readers. Interestingly once again Jenny was one of the first sites I approached to exchange links with. Perhaps my readers outside the UK will have heard of Bill. At the moment he is on our television screens as a presenter for BBC Two’s Springwatch. I have been enjoying watching the progress of other nesting birds in this programme.

There has been some very strange bird behaviour too including a swallow male deliberately dropping the newly hatched chicks out of their nest! It has been suggested that these chicks are not his. He then tried to mate with the female and proceeded to build a new nest! Nature certainly throws up the unexpected when we can watch it more closely.

So what about our blue tit chicks? Well, I am worried that the female isn’t bringing food in more regularly. I have noticed that if she comes in with food in quick succession the chicks are much stronger and alert. When she leaves them for ten minutes (too long I’d say at this point) they get tired calling for food and slide down into the nest. Then when she finally comes in with food they don’t show as much interest in it. She also has spells sitting on them too and if there was a male looking for food at that time things would be much better.

Another point I should make is that the female does spend a lot of time diving into the bottom of the nest. She will be cleaning the nest of any unwelcome insect pests like lice. When any chicks die she removes them from the nest to keep the nest clean. Maybe there is a problem with pests in this nest and I expect the weaker chicks will be more vulnerable.

On saying all this I also expect if the female found a good food source close-by that the chicks would thrive. Although I have put the live mini mealworms (in the feeder above) the female still appears to only be taking the fat sprinkles from it.

So, for the moment as we look into the Nestbox we find ourselves comparing the situation to last year where the chicks got weaker and weaker. However, on the positive side we can see that the chicks are larger at this stage. We would love to see them open their eyes this time. All they really need is more food and then the picture will really be quite different.



Finally, the last photo above was just taken now as I go to post this. The chicks are finding some strength to push up beside Mum. This photo does look very cosy but the female didn’t stay there for long. Out she went again in search of food - or perhaps a moment of R&R!

The video above was taken from my camera nestbox on June 3rd 2008. The photos above was taken in my garden on June 5th 2008.

Spiders and suet sprinkles

I am delighted to be able to post that the blue tit chicks in our camera Nestbox are getting bigger and stronger! There are still six chicks with one being smaller and as the others get bigger and stronger it is getting pushed further to the bottom of the nest as they climb over each other for space. Unless the smaller chick gets a few good feeds it may not survive. However, on Friday I was very doubtful if any would survive!

Five blue tit chicks are now a week old and you can really see the size difference from the day they hatched in the photos above. I am not sure how old the smaller one is but it really just needs a few good feeds to catch up in size and strength. I have say that we still see them as very small and had no idea they had grown so much!

I am guessing that the warm few days we have had has made it easier for the female to find food. We have seen many spiders going in and she is also bringing in the small fat sprinkles too. I still haven’t seen a mini mealworm coming in but hopefully she will discover them soon so that on any rainy days when she can’t find spiders she will have them. So between spiders and suet sprinkles our chicks are doing fine for the moment – long may this continue!

The photos above were taken from my camera Nestbox on Jun 1st and May 26th 2008.

Please find the greenfly

Time is passing slowly as we watch the chicks in our camera Nestbox. It is tricky to see how many are in the nest. We had eight eggs. I am guessing they have all hatched as I cannot see any left. I am also guessing perhaps they have not all made it. I can see the mouths open from five chicks although three/four seem to be bigger. I can also see that the chicks are weak as they don’t jump up frantically when the female comes in with food as they should.

The female blue tit isn’t finding much food for her chicks. I can see that, like last year, she is bringing sunflower hearts in – they can choke the chicks! I have hidden tiny fat sprinkles in a feeder in a bush where she looks (as recommended by the RSPB) and live mini mealworms in a feeder on the ground behind a pot where she also looks.

She just has to find them very soon or a new supply of insects and bugs – the greenfly on my roses for example. Caterpillars of course would be best but they aren’t going in the box. I don’t know what she fed them in the photo above but it wasn’t an insect. She nearly choked one of them but realised in time and pulled the piece of ‘hard’ food out.


She is still sitting on her chicks to keep them warm but I if I were to make an estimate on the outcome at this stage I’d say unless she finds the greenfly on my roses or the mealworms I have put out the chicks will all be gone by Sunday night. I am not enjoying looking in on the Nestbox now but this is the reality of nature. I have had mail from many people telling me that intruders have taken chicks from nests too and this is also the harsh reality of nesting birds.

However, I am also hearing of many success stories from other Nestboxes too. I have enjoyed following Jamie's Nestbox and this week saw his brood finally fledge - eventually!! He has some great images there if you want to see how the story can turn out. Enjoy looking at his videos! They are great fun as well as a great insight.

Evening Update: Argh... the starlings found my tiny suet sprinkles in a feeder hidden in a bush! Ah... but maybe this time they have helped! I am delighted to add here that the female blue tit has now found the sprinkles too and has been bringing them into the chicks who seem to have more energy now! So does she. I can now confirm that at this moment there are six chicks with one being a little smaller.

Tonight, I have been watching the female bring bugs in too. So I would say things are improving again. It is still early days with fours chicks only five days old and the other two younger. I am also very grateful to a local RSPB volunteer for lending me a feeder that I have been able to put the mealworms in which the starlings really are not likely to get in. Although perhaps we need a great tit or coal tit to come along and show her how to get in this feeder.

Also, I have now taken another approach with starlings. I am feeding them fat balls (which they love) away from the feeders that the blue tit is going to. For the moment this seems to be working fairly well. Today has seen a breakthrough in food coming in to the chicks and if this keeps up tomorrow we could see a big difference in the size and strength of the chicks.

The photos above were taken in my camera Nestbox on May 30th 2008.

Garden updates

I try not to mix up my posts on the plants, bird and wildlife in my garden too much but there is so much going on at the moment. Everyone is the same at this time of year I am quite sure. It is a busy time in the garden. My Nestbox videos of yesterday have now been processed and if you scroll below you see them but first to a very special plant in the garden…

Photos of wisteria in the stages before flowering are regularly searched for on the internet. This is such a wonderful plant to have flower in your garden. This will be my third year of flowers and I am thrilled. I hope the photo above helps if you are looking for flowers on yours.

You can see that the flower racemes are getting longer and the leaves are beginning to open behind them. We have had a warm spell recently and today it is raining, much needed for the garden plants now, so I would guess this will help them grow a bit further before they open their tiny flowers along the racemes.

Close-up photos are great for details of plants and I regularly use montages to show this. However, yesterday I posted photos of my garden as well as my Nestbox update. There you will see the plants that are surrounding my wisteria too.


Photos of hedgehogs are also being searched for at the moment and our juvenile has been back searching for food once again. The photo above is from a video capture which I will post one day soon. There is an interesting story to go with this one!

If you have a hedgehog visiting your garden remember to leave water out for them as well as food. I have found they like peanuts and sultanas in my garden.

Juvenile birds are now regularly visiting my garden. I have seen a woodpigeon, greenfinch and siskin. I am also seeing rows of queuing house sparrows and starlings on branches of trees. They are very noisily waiting to be fed by their parents. However, the starling juveniles don’t really care who feeds them and have been seen sitting next to the juvenile house sparrows opening their beaks looking for them to feed them!! The house sparrows have just shuffled along the branches but the starlings are seriously persistent birds! I really must try and get some video of this.

The blue tit chicks in my camera Nestbox and the plight of the female to single handily feed them is definitely the hottest news in my garden at the moment – despite the noise that the starlings are making as I write this. As it is overcast and raining today the image from my camera Nestbox is showing in black and white so it is difficult to make out the tiny chicks. I can see that one egg is certainly still there. I will update this post with numbers at the end of the day.

I am delighted to finally show some Nestbox video from yesterday and the night before. I’ll start with two short ones first. You can see how the chicks wriggle for space in the nest with their flopsy little bodies trying with all their might to lift their heads. The second video shows the female demolishing the egg shell of a hatched chick. She eats this as it gives her calcium – I don’t know how she knows this. I didn’t speed up this clip at all – she clearly had no time to waste!





The next video has not been edited - except with music. It was taken on Monday night at 9pm and lasts about three minutes. In this case I am not going to tell you what happens next...



What you saw in this video was me giving a food drop to the female via a folded piece of card acting as a chute. I hoped that she would see the small suet sprinkles as a possible food source for the chicks and herself. What happened next? She came back and took another piece of food then returned with food for her chicks and then she did the same again. It clearly gave her some much needed energy. This looked like I could help her. Now, here’s the tricky one – would I advise anyone to try this?

DEFINITELY NOT! Yesterday morning I tried the same again but looked for a different way of doing this. I thought a tube would work better. However it was a little large for the hole and I didn’t get the angle right. Once again I tried this only when the female was in the nest. If she had seen me from the outside she may not have returned and that would have been disastrous!

I quickly went for the card I had used the night before. I have to say that I had help with someone looking in the Nestbox as I did this. I didn’t get the angle of the card right either as I was desperately trying to be quick. Some pieces went in but I decided to leave it. I also had a signal from inside that I should stop.

I came inside the house and the female came out of the Nestbox and spent the next five minutes checking out all the areas of the roof before returning to her chicks. I have seen her fight off predators before – surprise, surprise the starlings! Although I wasn’t comfortable being the predator. Although I wanted to help her clearly this was a risky thing to do and I would strongly advise that you don’t try this. You can see why when you look at the video below which I am showing in case anyone else is considering doing this.



What can I do now? Well, as I have been writing this the postman has come with a very special delivery of live mini mealworms. I don’t relish opening the box! It was a Bank Holiday yesterday so my 'next day' delivery is later than I hoped. If it had come yesterday I would not have tried adding more sprinkles to the nestbox.

Anyway, my plan now is to try and leave a few scattered mealworms in corners and edges on the ground and some also near my ivy without the starlings catching sight of them! An impossible task perhaps but I have to try. Before I do that I am going out for more supplies of sunflower hearts which the starlings will eat greedily but perhaps it will stop them finding the mealworms. The blue tits and other birds are looking the sunflower hearts too. Ah… but maybe the rain today will make the insects move about and the blue tit will find them more easily. I hope so.

Finally, on the positive side the female is still finding food at the moment and I do believe the chicks are growing a little. When the last eggs hatch she will be out and about more. I wonder if we will see last night's blue tit, seen drinking at my pond, again today. Ah... what a journey our garden can take us if we look more closely.

All photos and video above were taken in my garden during May 2008.

Nestbox troubles

I can now say with certainty that the promise of our Nestbox pair of blue tits, which had a shaky start, is back on shaky ground yet again. The male is definitely out of the picture now and we have a female blue tit not only incubating her eggs and looking after her young chicks but she has to find food for both the chicks and herself now too.

At the moment the chicks aren’t able to eat too much but soon their appetites will increase greatly and I doubt she will be able to keep up with demand. The survival of her chicks is solely her responsibility now. I am trying to find a way to help her but the invasion of starlings and their chicks to my garden is making it difficult to know where to put food and believe me I am trying various methods!

This evening we did catch a glimpse of a blue tit at my pond looking for food. We initially thought it was the female until I looked in the Nestbox expecting to see her with the chicks and she wasn’t there! Now, I had to take a closer look at this blue tit who was drinking from the running water now. It was hard to tell if it was the male but if it was it was looking a little worse for wear!

Shortly after this the female left the Nestbox. I never saw where she flew to but I am told she joined this bird for a short while. Without seeing this I have no idea if she was chasing it away or flying with it. I wonder if she is looking for another mate now to help her out. We will just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.


I have a few videos I hoped to show tonight but disappointingly they are still in the processing stage for adding tonight. However I didn’t want Day 2 of our chicks to pass without an update. The photo above taken at 9pm tonight shows that we now have six chicks hatched and two eggs left. I fully expect that the last two will probably hatch before I next look in around 7.30am tomorrow morning.

Every time I look in the Nestbox now I find myself trying to count the chicks. When you see the videos I have you will understand that is easier said than done. I look for their little banana shaped mouths and black eyes. At the moment their eyes are fully closed so they have to listen for the chirps from the female to know when to open their mouths for food. It is absolutely fascinating to watch all this activity.

Oh… I really hope I can count all eight chicks tomorrow morning. The weaker chicks struggle at this time. Fingers crossed yet again.

The photo above was taken in my camera Nestbox on May 27th 2008.

Chicks hatch for BBC Springwatch

Blue tit chicks have hatched in our Nestbox with a camera just in time for BBC Two’s Springwatch for 2008 which starts tonight at 8pm from its new home at Pensthorpe Nature Reserve near Fakenham in Norfolk.

This morning we have three chicks and five eggs in our Nestbox. Just as in Springwatch we have had our own dramas in our Nestbox. Last year we had eight chicks which all died after a week as caterpillars were not available due to a hot April. This was so sad to watch at the end. You can see my diary for 2007 here with video and photos.

This year the drama was more a case of would the blue tits choose my Nestbox with our without a camera. You can read the full story for 2008 here.

However, I have been singing the praises of the male this year saying he was much more attentive! I am a tad worried now though as this morning it very much appears that the female is having to leave the nest to go out and get food for the chicks herself. Where is he? I don’t know if she will manage to do this by herself. She is still incubating the other eggs too as well as keeping the new chicks warm. I wonder if the male has left my garden in search of food for himself. The female really needs him back to help or once again she will loose her chicks due to lack of food.

Starlings have been causing a great deal of trouble at my feeders – even the ones hidden in ivy for the blue tits. I slowed up in refilling my feeders to discourage them a little. I have lost many of the other smaller species like the finches as they were unable to get near the feeders. Now the starling juveniles are out and about too and squawking their sharp long beaks off! I do know that the starling is endangered here in the UK and my plan is not to exclude them in favour of the ‘cute’ little birds. I just don’t want to the starlings to exclude all the other birds at my feeders! Surely they can learn to share?

The photo above was taken in my camera nestbox on May 26th 2008.

Incubation well underway

As I suspected the count of blue tit eggs in our Camera Nestbox stopped at eight. I know of other Nestboxes with a few more but I am hoping that having less mouths to feed will help the survival of all chicks. So now that incubation is underway how does the female pass the time?

Day-time naps are one way of passing the time during the incubation of the eight eggs in the nest. Interestingly the female began incubating before the last two eggs were laid.


Digging in the nest is another. I guess she is looking for any unwanted bugs but I suspect she is likely to turn the eggs at the same time. The nest cup is really getting quite deep now with firm walls.


Patiently waiting for food deliveries from the male is another - although she does tend to call out for food too. Her call is quite quiet so I don’t know how the male actually hears her. Of course sometimes he doesn’t…


So out she goes leaving the eggs for a short while. Sometimes she covers them up but not always. I have seen this pair feeding at the feeders together and flying from branch to branch in and out of my garden. I expect that they will be enjoying this freedom as whenever the chicks come they won’t have any free time at all! Sound familiar?


Before any naps and after any digging in the nest as she settles in the nest cup she looks like she is moving about to get more comfortable. However if you look more closely at her movements you will see she is repeating a rocking movement. What she is actually doing is turning the eggs with her feet. How clever – she is making sure all sides of the eggs keep warm!

Okay, I’m sure you would rather see all this activity for yourself. Below I have a video compilation of the highlights from the last few days with some still photo captures too. So what can we expect this week? Well, I’d say more of the same with the female perhaps leaving the nest less often.




What would I like to see this week? I would like to see the blue tits discover and eat the dried mealworms that I put out in a feeder last night. I was told by someone at the RSPB last year that they don’t recognise mealworms as a food. However I have seen other nestboxes where mealworms have been brought in to feed the chicks. Last year in desperation I put out live mealworms when the chicks were dying to help the parents in their endless search for food. They didn’t take them and the dunnocks and blackbirds went away with mouthfuls.

I am estimating it will be another ten days or so before the eggs begin to hatch so I am hoping that the resourceful blue tits will see other birds taking the mealworms and then try them too. So this week I am hoping to see the male bring mealworms to the female in our Nestbox. I believe this source of food could be vital in the survival of the chicks if there are no caterpillars at the end of the month.

Argh... this post was ready to publish last night but the video took longer to upload. That is not the reason I am a little disgruntled this morning. I have just opened the curtains to see the new feeder I put the mealworms in getting a bashing by the starlings. It claimed to be suitable for small birds and the ledge and area to eat from is small. However, the starling has a long beak and is gripping on for dear life and although slipping off also is still managing to knock the feeder about enough to get some out and knock the rest to the ground where others are running frantically around waiting. It is 7.50am and the feeder is empty! The container that I bought is also empty as I put the lot in. As the starlings are absolutely relentless in their greedy quest for food I will now need to remove that feeder from where it hangs. I hate to think the noise they made early this morning too. My planting of climbing roses are plan A to help feed the young chicks and this was plan B. I guess I will have to work on plan C now!!! Perhaps I should consider adapting the fat cake guardian as at the moment they cannot get in there.

The photos and video shown above were taken from my camera Nestbox this past week.

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.

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.

Running late - Nestbox update

This is our second year of having blue tits using our Nestbox with a camera in it. Last year at this time we were very excited as May 1st 2007 saw the first egg laid in our Nestbox. The photo below was taken at 7.20am then and I suspect that the egg hidden below this female was laid about two hours before.


So what’s going on with the same Nestbox this year? Well, I have to say that I really didn’t expect an egg today. We have a nest being built by a blue tit female at the moment but she is making such hard work of her creation. I’m really not sure when we can expect her first egg. I have been looking through photo captures from last year and the montage below gives an idea of how far behind our Nestbox is this year.



Moss came in last year on March 24th and the photo above shows that two days later our 2007 female was seen taking it out again. Last April was unusually warm and dry where this year it has been a lot colder with lots of hail stones. It has probably had the usual amount of rain.

So has the colder weather held nesting birds up? I am guessing that it may well have. You can see that our 2008 female brought the first moss in 10 days later. However, I cannot believe that our Nestbox will remain a full 10 days behind last year. The last two photos show the 2007 female in the nest cup and the 2008 female sitting on the surface as she still has to decide where to make her nest cup. This is what the shuffling is all about – pushing the material out to make the cup.

My instincts tell me that we will not be waiting until May 10th for an egg to be laid. I am going to make an estimate that she will not be having a holiday on Monday 5th May and will lay her first egg then. Oops… I’ve said it now!

Okay, it’s finally video time and I’ve a few to share. I have been waiting to capture some interesting footage seeing as not much has appeared to change in our Nestbox. I was hoping to catch the male visiting to reward the female with a tasty bite but alas I missed him. I have chosen to show footage from the same day, April 28, so that you can see how it changes!

Early morning shows the picture is in black and white. She looks like there is just no time to wait! See how thick and bouncy the nest is making her shuffles tricky.




Afternoon and let the shuffling continue… you can see the layer is not as thick now and floor can be seen again! I wonder if that was the male at the entrance? I have a feeling that it was someone else...




Afternoon break and time for a little inspection before… taking more moss out! Mm... did the nest not look thicker again?




Inspection complete and its time to get back to work again… this moss just has to go!!! Sorry about the quality of this footage. She is taking too much, too quickly towards the camera and it can’t keep up. However, it does show very clearly how quickly the nest can empty.




I’m busy… please go away! Okay, this capture is a bit different. If you turn up the volume in your speakers you will hear how agitated the blue tit is. Although looking at the video you will see how she spreads her wings out too. I am guessing she has an intruder at the entrance. I should have looked out another window to see who it was but I do have my suspicions. I saw this behaviour last year while the female sat on her chicks in the nest cup. Two starlings were at the entrance then too. I guess they were fancying her chicks for supper.




Night, night… I’m all tired out now! You will notice she is in the corner to sleep. This is usual until there is a nest cup. This footage was taken just after 8.30pm. You can see even when going to sleep she has to move moss around. Notice how she is all fluffed up and tucks her head in to make a ball.




I cannot believe all blue tits make nests in this way from looking at video footage and photos in other websites. Therefore, through looking again at video footage from last year I am now wondering if we have the same female in our Nestbox this year again. I am in no doubt we have a different male as this year as this one has a distinctive curl marking. I would then forgive her for all her indecisions with this nest and have my fingers crossed for her to have a successful brood this year.


Finally, as I began this post I had a look in the Nestbox tonight and was delighted to see the female looking like she was sitting in the nest rather on top of it. This would suggest that this evening she has been working on a nest cup. Mm… I have to say that she did this a few nights ago and then in the morning wrecked it all. I do think she is getting closer though. The photos were taken from left to right but it does look like she may be heading towards the wall again and on top of the nest again. Ah…

All photos above were taken from the camera nestbox in my garden.

The late shift

Moss has continued to go in and come out of our Camera Nestbox all week. I really didn’t think I had any more to add from my last update. I was late looking in on the Nestbox tonight and really I was only expecting to see more or less moss than this morning. However I was in for a surprise.

We had a late shift working in our Nestbox! Our blue tit female was in and out and in and out. Moss did come and go as usual but there was a great deal of inspection going on. We have been out all day but in our absence she has been very busy indeed. I watched her try a shuffle or two but the material is now too bouncy for her – she really hasn’t got the knack of this shuffling!

Seven-thirty passed and she was still in and out. Eight o’clock passed and she was still visiting. Yes, tonight she was clearly pondering over something. A long strand of dry grass was getting in her way. She tugged and tugged at it. She couldn’t find an end. She turned her back on it and went in to a corner. Yep… she was considering roosting in the box tonight.

Nope… this grass just had to go! Once again she tried to get it out. It wrapped around her almost tying her up. She bounced on the surface of the nest. She jumped up to the entrance hole with it only to be pulled back in caught up in it. She stopped every so often. Poor little soul was tired now. I bet she now thought of abandoning roosting here tonight. One more try… and the grass was out.

It was 8.20pm and finally the quite obviously tired little blue tit finally settled into the corner of the Nestbox where this piece of grass had been stuck. She didn’t waste anymore time and quite quickly tucked herself in for the night. I am guessing birds don’t dream which is quite fortunate in this case.

So tomorrow… I wonder if we will see the nest cup finally formed and see her start bringing in the softer material. I have put some nesting material out in a small hanging basket for her as I did for the birds last year. It is also hanging on the same hook beside a small tree. I do hope there will be some left for her as, just like last year, a jackdaw is going away with huge clumps -heading straight to my neighbours chimney with it!!

Finally, I have now seen starlings and blackbirds collecting pieces of nesting material from the borders especially around my ornamental grasses. Yep… the 2008 nesting season has officially kicked off in my area of Perthshire!

The photos above were taken in my camera nestbox on April 20th 2008.

Camera Nestbox 2008

This is our second year of having a Nestbox with a camera in it. Sadly, last year our blue tit chicks died after a week - with some only surviving a couple of days. Understandably we would love to watch a successful brood grow and fledge.

The blue tit pair that has chosen this Nestbox for this year began visiting in January. The photo above shows the blue tit male (left) and female in centre. The black and white photo shows our winter rooster. Notice the different markings they have. During March it looked like we had lost this pair to another Nestbox in the garden without a camera. They eventually returned and nest building began but as the first weeks of April have been quite cold perhaps the female has had no rush to build her nest!

Below, you will see a list of direct links to the activity in and outside our Camera Nestbox. If you are reading this with a Nestbox (with or without a camera) I wish you successful broods for 2008. If you are reading this without a Nestbox I would guess you might just consider putting one up for 2009.

The end of this nesting story - June 11, 2008

The chicks open their eyes - June 8, 2008

Three chicks now - June 6, 2008

Chicks getting bigger and stronger - June 1, 2008

Chick losses - five or six left - May 30, 2008

Chicks in nest, female eating egg shell (4 videos) - May 27, 2008

Update, six chicks now - May 27, 2008

Three chicks hatch - May 26, 2008

Incubation well underway with eight eggs (video) - May 19, 2008

The first egg (video) - May 8, 2008

Update of nest progress (6 videos) - May 1, 2008

Female blue tit roosting in nestbox - April 20, 2008

The moss comes in and the moss goes out (video) - April 13, 2008

The first moss comes in - April 3, 2008

Who picks the Nestbox to use? (video) - April 1, 2008

Trouble in the nestbox? (video) - March 24, 2008

The rooster gets visitors (video) - March 11, 2008

Have last year’s pair returned? (video) - February 15, 2008

Blue tit pair outside nestbox (video) - January 7, 2008

First visit of 2008 blue tit pair in Nestbox (video) - January 6, 2008

The photos above were taken in my garden.