Visitors since 27th September 2000:
We have three blue-tit boxes installed on the site this year. One is equipped with a mono video camera (box 1) as in previous years. Another has a removable lid (box 2) for taking still colour pictures during the nesting season. A third has a removable end, behind which is a glass screen. (box 3).
Box 1 was first occupied on 21st January 2002. A small amount of "test moss" has been brought in starting on 3rd Feb 2002.
Box 2 is currently empty
Box 3 has been occupied since the New Year and the bird observed frequently, after dark, using a flashlight.
Two birds together in the box 1 today, so clearly the season pairing is starting. There was much coming and going, and a desultory attempt at removing droppings. The female has been measuring up using her wings, as in 1999. She sits very quietly at the back of the box waiting for her partner to enter. Most of the time he just puts his head in at the hole. Sometimes he comes in as well; they wait a few seconds and then both depart.
A round of the nest boxes this afternoon still shows no evidence of occupancy in box 2. This is not so surprising as it is just around the corner from box 3, which has been occupied for some time. The boxes share a common staging post in the adjacent trees, so natural territorial competition may be in play here.
Routine cleaning of box 3 was undertaken today by the humans. It has been undisturbed since last year. In the spherical concavity engineered in the wood base, many droppings had collected. There was a little mound of what looked like compost, and investigation revealed a large number (more than 50) short (4 mm) wriggling worms, orange-brown colour, who have obviously been aiding and abetting the composting process.
One therefore wonders what the biological cycle is like in a nest hole which has no human attention from year to year. Do the birds clean out the previous year's material, and is this composting of droppings normal?
This is clearly the time of year for bird pairing to occur. An extract from the "Weekend Guardian" for Saturday 9th Feb 2002, page 43, says
...these spring fertility rites were too much for the church fathers, who wheeled in St Valentine to clean things up.... But by Chaucer's time, the 14th Feb was getting profane again, encouraged by the popular belief that it was on this day, in the second week of the second month, that birds selected their mates.
In box 1 the bird came in at 17:06 yesterday (local sunset at 17.11) and at 17:08:30 today. The sunset time is slipping about two minutes a day. This seems to be good time-keeping, on the part of the bird.
In box 3 we took this portrait, in between rain showers, at about 20:00 GMT, using a torch (flashlight) held in the hand, and a SONY DSCF707 digital still camera.
The bird in box 3 has decided to move out after the inspections. It is perhaps a little early in the breeding season to let the bird observe the humans in the act of observing the bird. We have expectations of further occupancy; so far, there has been no evidence of any bird using box 2 - which was a prime nesting site last year.
Contrariwise, the six rumbustious small humans in the back garden at dusk yesterday had only a temporary effect on the roosting bird in box 1. It came in at about 17:30 and left after ten minutes, disturbed by the raucous noises of the 10-year-olds. After they were gathered indoors, the absent bird returned and went straight to sleep.
It is not clear what constitutes an "unacceptable disturbance" for these birds. There seems to be some kind of threshold beyond which they cannot be pushed. Normal human activity and noise seems to disturb them very little. Most of the time, inspection with a torch, after dark, for a brief period, is well tolerated. Perhaps there are extra-human factors which we are not aware of, and that the classification of "threats" by the birds is more complex than we understand.
Box 1 is occupied, boxes 2 and 3 are still vacant. The bird in box 1 seems to be sitting more squarely on the thermometer today. The outside temperature is 11.2 Celsius, but under the bird, the nest-box thermometer registers 20.9 Celsius, or 9.7 degrees C warmer. Usually the temperature difference is between 2 and 4 C.
There has been no change to the occupancy of the nest boxes. However, the bird which is overnighting in box 1 has become assiduous in cleaning out the box in the mornings, removing all vestiges of droppings every day.
The resident bird in box 1 continues to keep the box spotlessly clean. Meanwhile, to remind ourselves of the occupants of box 1 just before fledging in 2001, on the 5th June, here is a picture of a boxful of youngsters. They are getting ready to make their first flights. It is a wonder that they can fly with no practice, but even more a wonder that they can land on a branch with no practice either. This is an unpublished picture from last year.
At 6pm on the 17th the bird came in briefly, returning twice and only settling on the fourth entry, at 6:15pm. There was a spell of insistent calling between first and last entry, with the characteristic triplet chirp of the parus caeruleus.
The weather was wet and windy on the 18th. The bird came in at 5:45pm, and settled immediately.
The floor of the nest box has sprouted an area of lighter colour. This afternoon we see why: the bird came in and started to strip splinters of plywood from the floor of the box, using its beak, and holding on to the protruding thermometer with its foot. This kind of attention to the inside of the nest box was seen in previous years , and is reported in Jim Flegg's book "The Blue Tit"
On the 21st March, the spring equinox day, a pair of parus caeruleus were cavorting on the clothes line just outside box 3, and one of them spent some time looking into the box through the entrance hole. Box 2 is out of the line of sight from the house, so may also have been inspected, although there is no sign of occupancy when the roof is removed.
The birds have started to build their nest in box 1. This activity was interrupted by the arrival of the window-glass-man to replace a cracked window under the box. In box 3, birds have been coming and going, making their inspections, but there is no sign of serious occupancy.
Both birds have been in box 1 today, simultaneously. One of them has been behaving more like a woodpecker, drumming away at the floor of the box, causing significant damage, and repeatedly throwing the small amount of nest materials up in the air, working the moss and straw into a ring around the centre of the box floor.
There is interesting behaviour today that we have not observed in previous years. Having imported a small covering of nesting materials, our bird is repeatedly faffing around in the thin cover on the box floor, moving the stuff back and forth, and only very occasionally bringing in additional matter. It is as if the 7th day of Creation has arrived without the intervening 6 days of hard work...the bird is looking at its handiwork to see that it is good. Perhaps it hasn't heard of Darwin.....there is a great temptation in the human world, too, to take stock before the job is finished. Perhaps it is the male bird. More seriously, we note that building has started two weeks earlier than last year, and, while the winter has been the warmest on record for over a century, the birds may be delaying serious building until the oak tree leaf-burst is more imminent (see previous years). Also, the box occupancy may be a "squatter's rights" activity; they are trying to hold on to the territory in the face of competition from other potential occupants. "Tactical nest occupancy", similar to "Tactical bed blocking" in the NHS.
The weather has been much better for the last two days. This morning, both birds were in the box, mating seriously. Afterwards, the female occupies herself with some serious nest building, bringing in repeatedly, loads of moss which she distributes among the straw which she had brought in earlier. The interval between trips was around 3 minutes. After a while, this activity tailed off again. A picture of the nest construction so far, in box 1.
For the last couple of days, there has been a pair of birds taking residence from time to time in box 3, with the glass end. They have not started to import nest material, though. A picture of nestbox 3.
In box 1, building continues steadily, if not quickly. Box 3 has been visited, and there are droppings and a small amount of material inside. The box 1 bird has an interesting behaviour pattern on leaving; it clambers half way out through the hole and drums on the outside of the box with its beak. It seems to have been learning bad habits from the woodpeckers.
In box 1, nest building is proceeding steadily. The nest is occupied every night, from around 6.15 GMT to 05.30 the following morning. The nest cup is now lined with soft material.
Both birds have been in the box from time to time. The male pokes his head in occasionally with an item of food. The female is outside at these times, but apparently is being enticed to keep up the good work of building.
Occasionally, both birds enter the box together and there is then a loud noise which is a cross between a hiss and a squawk. This is quite unlike the usual chirping and peeping noises.
The female bird drums on the outside of the box habitually, when she comes to depart. Often this is done from the outside of the box; she does not fly away after exiting, but hangs around for tens of seconds, banging on the outside by the hole.
In box 3, there is evidence of occupancy as there are several fresh droppings. There is no evidence of any interest in box 2.
Our early birds are still revving up at the end of the runway. There are no eggs yet, and it is eleven days since they started nest building. However, in previous years the first egg appeared on
Around the middle of the daylight hours, both birds visited the box 1 repeatedly, and the female spent 5 minutes at a time sitting broodily in the nest; still no eggs, but she seems to be practising for size and comfort. Later on she brought in still even yet more nesting materials.
In 1999, building started on the 3rd April and the first egg appeared in the completed nest six days later, on the 9th. The eleven days this year's set of birds has taken to construct a nest is a record for our site.
The bird has laid no eggs yet, but is still interested in the newly constructed nest.
Last night the bird took longer than usual to settle, only doing so after a "good night" visit from the male. This morning she took much longer than usual to depart; the male sat on the box outside and sang away merrily for ten minutes. Eventually the sitting bird stretched herself and exited, but there is still no sign of an egg.
Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother's funeral day. Still no eggs. A picture of the waiting nest this afternoon. It is eighteen days since the start of nest-building.
Late on the 9th April there was another episode of "repelling boarders" in which our resident female bird chased off an unwelcome visitor. On the morning of the 10th (the temperature outside is 6 Celsius) the two birds entered the box together; there is still no sign of any egg laying.
London Marathon day. Humans up early. There was an extended morning departure ritual today, in the ice and frost. The male bird arrived at 05:40 and clattered about on the outside of the box, making a dreadful racket with his feet and singing insistently. He then perched on a dangling antenna lead just outside the nest box hole and chortled away for ten minutes. He was roundly ignored by the female.
At 05:50 she woke up and stretched, looked out, and then settled (awake) again for another ten minutes. We thought she was egg-laying, but when she left just after 06:00 there was no sign of any egg.
By that time, the female human had left to run the Marathon.
Today is warm and sunny. The weather is forecast to change tomorrow, after nearly 4 weeks without rain.
The bird has been energetically building the nest with fluff, feathers, and lining materials, today. She has made a deep nest cup, from the edge of which she can stand and look out of the hole. She has been trying out the nest cup for size and spending long periods of time sitting on the still-eggless nest.
In box 2, there was evidence of interest on the 14th April, with some moss having been introduced. Since then, there have been no further developments. The droppings in box 3 have migrated, so someone has been visiting that one too.
The bird didn't depart this morning until 06:40; recently it has been out before 06:00. We surmised (correctly) that it was laying the first egg.
Later on in the day there was a battle for occupancy, very similar to the occasion on the 14th April 2001 last year which has been reported before. The attention of the humans was drawn to this by the great racket as was recorded last year.
After the intruder had been repelled (this took upwards of 5 minutes as he was too big to get back out through the entrance hole easily) the resident bird tidied up, departed for ten minutes, and then came back to go to sleep on the dishevelled nest. Meanwhile, the human had taken the opportunity to inspect the damage and uncover the new egg to take the picture first egg linked above.
Again, as last year, the fighting birds used their feet, and feathers flew. During this contest, the partner of the defender kept looking in through the hole to offer encouragement and support. ("Typical" said the female human). Otherwise he took no part in the contest. Later on the female spent 20 minutes drumming on the box while the male sat singing on the wire outside.
Despite much encouragement from the male, our resident female, having woken up before 6.00 am, again didn't depart until 06:40. Inspection of the nestbox revealed only the single egg seen on the 17th April; no more eggs have been laid and the lone egg was broken. The remains were carefully removed, the nest tidied up and replaced, and within ten minutes the birds both returned for an inspection. Perhaps the battle had had more effect than we realised at the time. It remains to be seen whether or not the nest will now be abandoned.
Well, "up to a point, Lord Copper." Our birds were not noticed for the part of the day when humans were there to notice, but at bed time, 19:15 BST, the female returned to the box accompanied by the male, who sat on the wire outside offering his usual encouragement. Activity in the box was absent unlike on the previous days, until roost time when the female spent a long time twitchily cleaning up in the nest cup, and trying to settle, only to wake up again.
Discussing this with the young human (10 years old) we came to the conclusion that the good thing about observational science, and real experiment, is that you just don't know in advance what will happen. This is quite unlike the Public view of science, which is that it should be all about prediction and certainty.
What we can say with some certainty is that these birds are remarkably persistent in the face of vicissitude and adversity.
A fresh egg is clearly visible this morning. The bird was slow in getting started, didn't leave until 07:40. Clearly, egg-production cannot be halted suddenly; the bird was bound to lay an egg somewhere this morning so the existing nest was the obvious choice of location.
Our bird seems much more purposeful now, unlike the rather dilletante posture adopted earlier. Movements are compressed in time and she is spending no time at all in faffing about in the nest cup, or banging on the outside of the box. Here she is, sitting on the new egg.
A week after the London Marathon 2002 the female human is off swimming at Crystal Palace for Godalming Masters. It is not only parus caeruleus which are persistent.
Two eggs this morning.
Three eggs this morning.
Later in the day we see behaviour observed several times recently. After the female comes in to roost for the night, the male appears and sticks his head in through the hole with an offering of food. There is some gentle hissing from the female - - "don't bother me now" - - and the male, after a few tries, departs. This male is by far the most attentive of the partners of egg-laying birds which we have observed since 1999.
The bird left much earlier today, having covered her eggs, and repeatedly revisited them to bury them deeper. We think there are four but are not sure. The male has been very solicitous of the eggs; even when the female is not there he pokes his head in with food and looks at them.
After three days when the female has been absent for most of the time, today she is visiting repeatedly, and has reverted to the habit of banging loudly on the box for minutes at a time, usually when stuck half way out through the hole. This has caused some damage to the nest box.
At 19.15 she came to roost for the evening. It is warm, even hot, and the nestbox thermometer says 24 C. The nest building was started on the 22nd March 2002, which is now over a month ago. That has provided plenty of time for the fleas and heebie-jeebies to establish themselves in the nest materials. Between 22:00 and 22:30 our bird had a concerted attempt to attrit these creatures, with vigorous preening and very rapid scratching with the legs. She has a very prehensile neck; the preening is unlike the normal grooming, but rather vigorous pecking and biting into the feathers of the back, under the wings, and under the belly.
Earlier on she had moved the nest material to give us a sight of the four eggs today.
Five eggs today. Our female is becoming broody, spending more and more time on the eggs. Less visible in the late evening as she has gone foraging for night food supplies.
Six eggs today. A warm, fine sunny day and the bird has started to brood on them. She is spending long periods, inertly sitting on them, and turning them from time to time. Regularly and reasonably frequently (20 minute intervals perhaps) the male comes in to feed her.
There was no additional egg this morning. The bird has started to brood seriously. The weather has broken into strong and squally April showers, with thunder and hail and strong gusts of wind, that make a terrific noise on the nest box microphone. After one such squall, the male set to in a paroxysm of feeding, visiting his mate no fewer than seven times in as many minutes, bearing what seemed to be small flying insects as food offerings. Perhaps all the insects come out and are easily caught, after a shower.
The weather has turned colder. In the middle of the night, the bird was breathing deeply at about 120 movements per minute, fluffed up into a ball of feathers, waking every so often to turn the eggs.
In the morning, after a day off, it had laid the seventh egg.
The bird departed at 08:15 BST, and shows us that there are still seven eggs.
Colour high-res picture of seven eggs (172kB)
The male is still very attentive, bringing food repeatedly and the two birds make a trilling-flute sound, coupled with some hissing. Later in the morning the male is absent. The female trills and flutes several times, then goes outside and bangs on the box. Eventually she is reduced to going out on her own every 15 minutes or so; we wonder if anything has happened to her mate.
Everything seems to be on-course still; the mate arrived at 1:15 pm with a large beakful of lunch, and our sitting bird followed him out for an absence of nearly ten minutes.
The nestbox thermometer has worn the hole in the base of the nestbox and is protruding rather more than last year. In addition, our bird has not lined the base of the box with green moss, as was done in previous years. Further evidence is that the thermometer has been registering 24-27C at night, instead of being just a few degrees above outside temperature. Looking at the picture above, we are concerned that the bird has rolled an egg onto the thermometer, puncturing the egg, so we have removed the thermometer and plugged the hole.
The male bird seems to be making the running in this breeding programme. First the female is dilletante about nest construction, then she lays an egg and fights off an intruder; some days later she resumes egg laying after we have removed the broken first egg. Then she lays six eggs, and misses a day, and then lays a seventh egg. At no time does she flutter her wings at the male; he appears to need no encouragement to bring her food, so the courtship feeding ritual is not required. He also keeps bringing food to the box when she is absent - it looks as if he is encouraging her to come and do her motherly duties.
It has been exceptionally windy today. The humans, out on their jogs, have seen the young oak leaves blown to the ground. The oak leaf burst this year is earlier than it has been in previous years. We wonder if the birds have mistimed.
Windy and wet. The male is bringing a continuous supply of caterpillars for the female. It looks as if the birds may have started a bit too late.... the caterpillars are needed for the development of the young birds, and the supply may be over by the time they are large towards the beginning of June.
Statistics and this year's prediction have been compiled. Hatching is expected about the 9th May 2002 and fledging about 30th May 2002.
Morning, 4.5 Celsius, found a human and the male bird looking at each other through an upstairs window just above the nestbox. The bird was clinging on to an antenna downlead and swinging in the breeze, chortling merrily. Having delivered his load of caterpillar to the nestbox hole, he flew off, leaving the human hanging hopefully out of the window with a high resolution camera.
Our bird made several close approaches, but didn't settle again and eventually he tempted the female to come out of her warm nest and take his next caterpillar offering on the garden fence. The human and camera retired, temporarily defeated.
Here is (242 kB) a high definition picture of the eggs half way through the brooding season.
The male bird has been much less in evidence recently. That is why, when the female departs for food, we can de-mount the box and photograph the contents. The male still comes occasionally; the female is starting to flutter wings at him and is much more encouraging than of late. Perhaps the male bird does not feed so intensively towards the end of incubation. Only by acquiring more data shall we see if this is commonplace. While there are behaviours in common with earlier years, we are struck by the individuality in evidence in each nesting cycle.
Today proceeds uneventfully. Frequent feeds by the male early in the day, then the female went out and came back with even still yet more nest materials towards noon, followed back closely by the male. We are not sure why she should have chosen to import more nest material as she has shown no sign of this for the last two weeks or so.
The nest cup this morning is even better defined than it has been for some time. The bird is preparing its facilities for the Great Hatching Event, probably on Thursday. She has been importing more fine nest materials into the nest cup; wispy bundles of stuff clearly intended for the lining. The weather is "typical Bank Holiday", cold and mizzling with rain. The humans are wrapped up well and have their central heating running. The birds have to rely on internal fires, fuelled by caterpillars. Clearly, sitting motionless on eggs for nearly two weeks does not give our bird the chance to warm up by vigorous physical activity.
Another reason that the nest seems to hold together better towards the end of the brooding cycle is that it may be cemented by feather oil and secretions from the bird's body. We have noticed before that when an empty box is inhabited for some time by a roosting bird, the inside surfaces become coated with a whiteish oily secretion. There was one occasion when the bird inadvertently became trapped inside a box, and in its endeavours to escape left a thick layer of oil on the inside of the box. Bird feathers need oil to throw off the water in wet weather, and much of the preening behaviour is aimed at distributing the film of oil uniformly over the feather surfaces. The bird has oil glands somewhere on its body.
Our bird is still importing nest-cup lining materials, and the male bird is feeding her large caterpillars. The eggs may hatch today, or possibly tomorrow.
Two eggs hatched by 13:30 local time, the first at about 09:00 and the second some time later. Here is a large colour picture (188kB) showing one open beak. Of course, open beaks need feeding and our male bird is very willing to help as well as trying solo. In fact, after the first hatchling emerged, our male came with food, but was too tentative to try to feed without guidance.
Our birds did not manage to hatch any more eggs before dusk, but earlier in the day, a colour view of the nestbox shows how lost our young ones seem in the huge nestbox, several inches square.
At 09:00 there are still only two hatchlings, and five unhatched eggs. By evening, the bird had spent most of the day on the hatchlings and the eggs, moving them all around, and not leaving them to get cold (the outside temperature has been about 13 C for the last few days). Perhaps the remaining eggs will not hatch now.
An intruder was reported at about 17:15, seen by the young human, and identified as a great-tit. It provoked the standard hissing and tail-fanning reaction from the female resident. Having driven the visitor away, the bird returned to tending the nestlings as usual.
The supply of food, brought in by the male, overloaded the capacity of the two small nestlings. Some was eaten by the female, and some carried off again to the great outdoors.
Late in the evening, our sleeping bird was waking about ten times per hour to move around on the eggs and the nestlings. Sometimes she up-ended in the nest cup to scrape around on the bottom of the nestbox.
Gentle rain at first light. Between 05:00 and 06:00 the bird gradually woke up, moving more frequently in the nest cup, about once every two minutes. At 05:55 the male arrived with a caterpillar. Our bird fed it to the two rapidly growing nestlings, and then ate (ingested) one of the poo sacs, which are still quite small. No more eggs have hatched overnight.
At 06:00 am the male bird brought breakfast, the female bird having departed for a bit. Our youngsters are significantly larger, and the male removed the faecal sac from the nest, instead of ingesting it as in previous days. There are 5 sterile or dead eggs, and two youngsters. The adult birds seem unfazed by the high proportion of non-starters. It does mean that the two young are being fed exceedingly well.
The young are just beginning to grow ridge feather precursors along the centres of their spinal columns. This is about 80 hours after hatching. Development is indeed rapid.
The young, being stuffed full most of the time, are not very forward in presenting their beaks at feeding time. The result of this is, that the adult birds cluck at them to gain their attention...the nestlings' eyes are still shut, and they can't see the food coming.
These birds have a much greater range and variety of audible signalling than we have observed in previous years. The male bird sits on the dangling antenna wire outside the front of the nestbox, and trills with a sound that is a cross between a cat's purring and a flute. When the birds are transferring food between themselves, they make clucking and smacking noises like American radio and TV presenters are wont to do, and they also hiss at each other in a friendly way. This hissing is quite different in quality from the aggressive hissing at intruders.
It is a wet day today, persistent drenching rain. The birds continue to feed their young who are trying to keep their heads down in the nestbox while the top is off the box to take these colour pictures (103 and 195 KB respectively).
The weather is warming up, and although the young birds are still largely naked, the parents are spending a lot of time away from the nestbox, gathering food, and indulging in only the occasional spell of sitting on the youngsters. Of course, their surface to volume ratio is less now they are larger, and so their temperature control will be that much better, particularly as they are now eating quite a bit more food.
The developing bird colour picture above is 121 KB, and here is a 111 KB colour picture of the birds in the nest early in the morning on day 6.
A fine, warm, and sunny day. The bird-watching human has been giving an intensive short course on microwave engineering. The birds continue to grow. They are huddling together for warmth and/or company, even though the outside temperature is in the mid 20s C.
In the last day, the movements have become quick and jerky, with characteristic head-preening and leg-scratching starting. They are also starting to emit soft cheeps, especially at feeding times.
A spare young human is currently "roosting" and the presence of two young humans in the garden at dusk has put off the adult birds, who beat a retreat to the trees next door, watched, and waited for their opportunity. Two young humans make far more noise than one does, if they are both about 10 years old.
For some strange reason, the female decided to bring more moss into the box after this disturbance. She abandoned the moss in a corner of the nest box and went back to cleaning out the bottom of the nest cup, under the fledglings.
The human has managed to record a film clip lasting about 90 seconds, in a .mov file which turns out to be about 7MB. It is hoped to post this, or an improved version, on the eryptick site at some indefinite time in the future. It should also be possible to make short movies of last year's fledging activities, from the videotape archives. People with broadband internet access may be able to download these in a reasonably short time.
Warm, fine and mostly sunny day today. The pictures taken on the 16th and 18th of May show the nestlings deep at the bottom of the nestcup, with nest materials overhanging them. Their wing feathers are developing fast and there is a little clump of proto-feathers at the rump which is going to develop into the tail, which will be needed in ten days time for the first flights.
Today the humans, tired after a long week of SATS and short courses etc, have spent more continuous time observing the comings and goings in the nestbox. It appears that feeding proceeds in waves - long intervals (over an hour) of relative inactivity, followed by frantic feeding (10 visits in 10 minutes) at the "meal time". Both parent birds come and go continuously; a poetry of efficiency in feeding, with a lack of wasted and un-necessary activity. In the calm periods, the female fusses around in the bottom of the nest cup and prods her nestlings with her beak.
Here are some large detailed colour pictures of the nestlings on the seventh (Thursday last) (193 KB) and nineth (Saturday last) (156 KB) days after hatching. The latter picture shows the development at "half time from hatching to fledging". The nest rim is out of focus because of the great depth of the nest cup.
There have been two wet nights. The young birds continue to grow. The nest cup material has been displaced and covers the youngsters most of the time. We are still expecting fledging to occur in seven days' time.
There have been many heavy and brief showers today. The human was up at 5am to go to Heathrow Airport for a power breakfast. In the afternoon, the birds made some fine pictures in the nest box on day fourteen after hatching, and a detailed close up picture shows how well developed they are now. It is possible they may fledge a day or two early, as there have been only two of them to feed.
The birds today have moved a large wadge of nest material over the nest cup, and are hiding (mostly) beneath it. Early in the morning, the humans heard the loud calling of the male, perched outside the box and the open bedroom window, clutching the antenna wire and advertising breakfast, noisily. The female, when sitting on the nestlings, waits until she hears the male calling from outside, and then exits sharpishly to leave the coast clear for him to enter with his food offering. He then leaves too, and she returns in a few minutes with her own caterpillar.
One human spent an evening at Rake Court, Milford, listening to a piano recital in a medium sized mediaeval room attached to a private mansion. For coolth, the windows were open, and at dusk the local birds provided a vigorous obligato to Kreisleriana and Estampes.
Today was mostly dry, but breezy. Morning pictures show the birds still developing. Later in the day, they have become very noisy in the nest. A similar sound to the time last year just before fledging, consisting of loud squawks. Here they are in the afternoon, with the mother watching from the wire with a caterpillar at the ready, and waiting patiently for the human to finish the photography and replace the box of youngsters on the wall.
We are now within a day or three of fledging, and the young birds are practicing at flapping their wings in the nest box. Much water has descended from the sky today, mostly in heavy showers. It is not clear whether fledging is weather-dependent. Perhaps they don't try a first flight in the rain as this will add to the wing-loading.
The occasional cat is on patrol, but with luck the young birds will be plenty strong enough to fly up into the trees rather than down onto the ground or into the bushes.
Overcast but dry this morning. Our birds are being fed early in the day, and keep heads down when photographed. They are now both nearly full-sized and doubtless will leave soon.
This is the nineteenth day from hatching. A picture of the birds yesterday afternoon shows some detail. Today started fine and sunny, with the female human off to the Guildford Lido at 6:30 am for an early morning swim. Sadly, the weather soon clouded over and persistent rain set in. Our birds are making almost as much noise, between the two of them, as the box of youngsters did at this stage last year. They are also preening persistently, and preparing their feathers for flight. They attack the incoming food-bearing parents aggressively, for their rations. In past years, fledging has been on day 20 from hatching, so they should fly tomorrow. One wonders what it is in the scheme of things that tempts them out of the security of the nestbox.
There were a few showers today, but on the whole it was good flying weather. Our young birds are having nothing of it, however. There are only two of them; they are being well-fed and it isn't too crowded. This time last year, in the crowd of birds, the mother had given up roosting with them at night. But tonight all three are huddled together, keeping each other company.
Earlier in the afternoon we took this picture using the flash, which by now we assume will not disturb them too much.
After some intensive morning feeding, our two birds fledged at 07:20 and 07:30 BST today. The female sat on the wire encouraging them. At first, a few tentative peeps through the hole established that the coast was clear, then the first bird looked out and shortly afterwards, heaved itself through the hole and departed. Shortly afterwards, the second bird looked out, and then timed its departure to coincide with a moment when the human's attention was distracted.
The birds flew up and away into the trees, where their parents continued to pay attention to them.
A fine day today. No sign of our fledged birds, or any other swarms of young parus caeruleus in the outside world. One wonders what they get up to in the first few days after fledging, and how, if there are more than half-a-dozen youngsters from a nest, the parents keep track of them to feed them and stop them dispersing. It is also interesting to speculate on how and when they learn to forage for their own food.
Our main nest box has been occupied continuously from 21st Jan 2002 to 20 May 2002, a total of 119 days or four months, a third of the year. Thus the provision of a nest box goes a long way to filling the residency needs of these birds.
Our birds this year had extended their staging territory to include the trees overlooking the other two nest boxes, and because they had established themselves so firmly and so early, probably inhibited other birds from using the other boxes. Received wisdom is that the density of nesting sites is only a few per acre of land.
A hot and sultry day today. Lots of sunshine early in the morning. Down the garden it is the third day after fledging and there are noisy blue-tit fledglings in the trees where formerly the parents were foraging.
Overcast, warm, and dry today. The bird ecology in the garden has undergone a bifurcation in the last week. Noisy flocks of fledgling blue tits fly around the garden from trees to trees, landing unsteadily. There is a curious mixture of adult calls and of the noises the youngsters make when asking to be fed. Not only parus caeruleus, but young starlings and young greenfinches are to be seen. So we have reinstated the nut and seed feeders outside the nest box site; this attracts birds, billing-and-cooing collared doves, and a young squirrel who is searching for detritus which has fallen to the ground. Great tits are seen diving for peanuts in one of the feeders, to keep their hungry fledged young supplied. The whole natural bird world, after several weeks of comparative calm, has burst into life.
It is the last day of the Queen's Golden Jubilee long-weekend. There are off-site pictures of the celebrations in Dorking which we took on Saturday. The humans have made numerous visits to the town dump, mucking out the detritus of N past years, which has progressively accumulated. So far we have not mucked out the nest box. The recommendation in the text books is that this is done between October and January.
Observations of the nut and seed feeders over the last ten days show frequent visits by young birds of many species, including greenfinches and blue tits. The young frequently sit on the wire -- fluttering their wings in the hope that some other bird will do the work of extracting the food, and feed them. They are unsteady in their movements, and congregate in groups (scarcely large enough to call flocks), sometimes hovering in mid air waiting for a space on the feeders to become available.
This vigorous activity is in marked contrast to the almost total lack of visits earlier in the year, in February and March. The food levels drop fast and the feeders need replenishing more than once a week. It seems important to provide a food supply for newly-fledged birds, that is reasonably safe and convenient.
A collection of blue-tits on the nutfeeders today displayed interest in the abandoned nestbox. At least one bird visited the box and entered. The box has been untouched since the summer, and the unfertile eggs are still in it together with the nesting materials.
A pair of brightly coloured blue tits has been investigating the nestbox this morning, with one entering and trying to attract the other. It is raining today for the first time for over a month.
A wet day, the Indian Summer haven broken at last. An elevated temperature reading on the nest box thermometer at 23:00 BST prompted a look at the nestbox camera, to reveal a very glossy blue tit roosting happily at the edge of the old nest and eggs.
The bird woke early, preened itself repeatedly and vigorously, and eventually left at 07:18 BST. It did not return in the evening; the rain had stopped and the weather was a little warmer.
The 15th was a wet and blustery day, and the bird was driven in to roost at 18:05 BST, leaving before 07:20 the following morning. It is paying no attention to the existing nest material.
There have been no days, since the 15th, when the weather at roosting time has been wet. Consequently we have not had a roosting bird.
There has been no sign of overnight occupancy for the last month or so. Today the barometer reads 962 mb and there is a gale blowing. A bird has visited the box and started to deconstruct the dead eggs and remove the detritus. There have been several morning visits over the last few weeks, but this morning is the first time we have seen any nest box maintenance happening.
It is getting dark and gloomy quite early in the day. Looking out into the garden we saw nest box visits happening at about dusk, 16:15 on a clear November afternoon. Turning on the camera, a busily-preening large bird was seen to be inhabiting the box. It seemed a bit nervous, but after about ten minutes it settled for the night.
The human ventured down the garden on an errand, and the sound of the sliding patio door alerted the bird. The second sound, of the door closing, caused it to look out into the dusk, and then make a decision to overnight elsewhere.
This is the most timid behaviour we have ever seen in one of our box birds. It remains to be seen whether the bird will return on subsequent nights.
The nest box has been visited a few times since the last report on 26th November 2002, but there have been no roosting birds, and the birds have seemed to be uncomfortable with the remains of this year's spring nest.
Accordingly, today we deconstructed the nest box and took pictures of the nest in the box showing how deep it is now, and also the removed nest, showing the two remaining unbroken sterile eggs. This picture shows the intricate nest construction quite well.
The nestbox was then cleaned thoroughly in warm water, being scrubbed with a nylon washing-up brush, and replaced. Sure enough, just before dusk at about 15:55 GMT a bird arrived and settled down to roost for the night. Clearly the bird is very much happier to have a clean box.
Therefore, our best advice to box-owners is to clean out the box ahead of the winter roosting season.
The bird has been roosting continuously every night since the last report on the 7th December. It comes in just before sunset and leaves promptly in the morning when it is sufficiently light to see to fly.
The resident parus caeruleus is reliably coming in to roost each evening just before local sunset. The weather has been warm, over 10C most days. Also, it has been very wet.
Sparrows have been seen today entering a hole on the South facing gable end of the roof. This is good, as there are few sparrows to be seen in this part of the world in recent times.
Also, several nuthatches have been visiting the feeders.
This 2002 narrative page will close at the end of the year and be succeeded by a 2003 season narrative page at http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/D.Jefferies/bird/diary2003.html
New Year's eve. A dry spell in between all the rain we have had recently. The bird came in to roost at 16:10 and was severely incommoded by the noise of fireworks and four children letting off party poppers and sparklers at the turn of the Year. BBC Radio 4 lost the feed on Big Ben, so we had to guess when the exact moment occurred. The bird looked very worried for a bit, and thought of leaving into the dark, but then thought better of it and settled down resignedly.
email d.jefferies@surrey.ac.uk David Jefferies 31st December 2002
