A few days had passed and the two hatched chicks were growing and feeding well.
The three remaining eggs had not hatched and we assume that the other chick must have died at hatching and its body and egg removed while we were not looking.
The chicks change in appearance every day. Feathers form and darken.
Most of the feeding and all of the nest tidying is done by the female bird, but the following fuzzy photo proves that Mr Blue Tit does sometimes come along bearing gifts of grubs and maggots!
The female regularly flies out to collect food but spends much of her day brooding her chicks and keeping them warm. She is a busy mother and fusses around moving feathers and fluff. She still appears to be turning the unhatched eggs, which we assume must be either unfertilised or addled by now?
Sometimes she almost turns somersaults as she tidies, turns and feeds.
On recent wet days, I have watched her on a nearby tree branch, shaking the rain out of her feathers before she returns to the nest.
This morning was an anxious one. Only one gaping mouth was feeding when we first looked in at the nest. Had the larger chick or the mother bird trampled the smaller chick? Had the wet, colder days taken their toll?
A few minutes later, Mrs Blue Tit returned with a white grub and a second gaping mouth appeared.
Two hungry chicks are now waiting for more and the parent birds are out in this morning`s sunny garden, on their perpetual hunt for food.
6 comments:
With throats so big it's surprising they never learn to sing.
How interesting that only two have hatched. Sometimes I believe blue tits have very large broods which they find difficult to rear, so Mrs BT should have little difficuly with those two and they should grow really well.
What a wonderful time-waster that camera must be! Glad that she has two remaining chicks (one assumes the other eggs are addled). Two will be a lot easier to raise than a larger number, as Pat said.
How sad that only two of the chicks have hatched. Easier for the parents to find enough food for just two though.
It is wonderful watching all this happen, but it is surprising that only two eggs have hatched.
What a great idea to have a web cam already attached to the bird box. It must be fascinating watching their progress. Hope you don't have any further concerns about them. Sarah x
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