More little ones

Blue Tit

Great Tit

Nuthatch x 6

Nuthatch x 8

Hello little chappy's and it's 100 up

Say hello to the newest arrivals in the woods -

This is a brood of 5 Great Tit chicks with 1 egg which may or may not hatch 

and below we have -

a brood of slightly older Blue Tit chicks, 7 of in total with an egg underneath of them

Today the clutch of Blue Tit eggs below in the woods at Treslothan became the 100th nest with eggs to be found, recorded and monitored this year although technically it's not been found as it's in a nest box -

 

and the pair of Blue Tit below using this box certainly like their feathers. 6 eggs were hidden in this mess

Great Tit's are great

newly hatched this morning -

and this clutch is a personal best. The largest Great Tit clutch I have had before was one of 8 eggs last year until a clutch of 10 were laid this year.

narrowly beating this clutch of nine found a couple of hours later -

Variation in egg markings in Blue Tit

Nothing scientific, just three images of Blue Tit eggs from the same area

Heavily marked -

lightly marked -

and a clutch that has an almost all white egg -

Song Thrush young

Quick post tonight. As well as extracting more data from the nest boxes today I had a Wren nest and three Song Thrush nests to check. The Wren was fully clutched on 4 eggs, the first egg date being 23rd April, two of the Song Thrush nests had fledged their young, 1 and 3 chicks respectively and the third nest still has 3 young at the feather stage of FS. The nest was found by cold searching an area where a Song Thrush was seen flying from and the nest is situated at about 4m high in a hollowed out part of a tree trunk surrounded by ivy. A good well hidden nest and the images are below (only two of the three can be seen clearly) -

Coal Tit woe and more oddity's

For three years my local woodland has been my main nesting patch and for three years I have tried to find Coat Tit's nests without success. Today, after dinner, I parked up the car next to the woods just as a Coal Tit flew into the wall adjacent to some bracken. Further investigation proved that this hole in the wall is indeed a nest site with the vegetation around the hole rounded and smoothed off. Unfortunately the cavity is too deep, I do not have an endoscope and my first Coal Tit nest has gone begging -

Today (and tomorrow) has been spent trying to fill in the gaps in the nest box scheme - size of full clutches, species, and boxes still at NL. The aim of the day was to extract all the missing information from Stennack Wood, which is Area 1 in the woodland. I had thought about and allowed all day for this. A beautiful sunny morning brought the birds to life, many females off feeding rather than sitting tight and being fed on the nest. As a result all boxes but one were complete by lunchtime. Huge bonus.

The afternoon was spent in 10 Acre Wood, the sun had gone in, conditions became cooler and the birds slowed down a little. One box was known to contain Great Tit which are more sensitive to disturbance than Blue Tit's so, rather than check the box I hid behind a tree waiting for her to come out and feed. After 10 minutes or so the male began to call, this is it I thought, she's coming off. Quite the opposite actually as landing in some holly very close to the box the female appeared cleaning her bill. She was already out and had just finished feeding! I got up quickly, thankfully she saw me and flew higher up allowing me to inspect the box safely.

Another oddity turned up today, the 3rd box in the woods this season to have eggs laid on bare wood. Cant really work out what on earth is going on with this.

presumed Great Tit on bare wood

Another box oddity

The box above contained 1 egg on the 14th April, today it contained 3 eggs, still cold on bare wood. I never had the opportunity to identify the species therefore the record cannot be submitted. Assuming the last egg was laid on the 16th they are probably now dead.


This morning saw a low mist around 7am, the sort that is easily burnt off revealing clear blue skies. By 7.45am the temperature was higher than at any point yesterday. Checking boxes that I have an incomplete clutch count, boxes still at NL or less and boxes of unidentified species was the order for today and I had extracted more information in half an hour than I did in three hours yesterday morning. I have also possibly found a crevice in behind bark that could be used by Coat Tit. One bird was seen to go in this morning and excavate a bit of rotten wood out. If it does get used it's recordable and will constitute my first Coal Tit record

2 Blackbird at FL and a few days away from fledging 

6 Great Tit young, blind and naked 

  6 Blue Tit eggs