amounting to 15 hrs
I've spent the last two days hiding behind trees, in bushes, sitting in bramble and wet leaves watching my nest boxes. I had 36 boxes for which I didn't have a complete clutch count for, without this I cant work out the survival rate for fledged youngsters. As I'm not a trained ringer able to ring the adults I have to wait until the female comes off to feed, sometimes it's a couple of minutes wait, other times it was 45 minutes. I now have completed counts for all boxes in use (52) with another 5 or so still laying or building. There's a total of 372 eggs to date with more to come so hopefully I can break the 400 egg mark. Last year I had 194 so a difference of +178 with more still to be laid. Last year my biggest clutch was 8 however this year I have some 10's and two clutches of 11. Additional boxes have been put up this year but only 7.
On the downside the Song Thrush nest I found last week has failed.
Great Tit eggs
Song Thrush eggshell
Blue Tit eggs
Blue Tit nest and eggs in a Treecreeper wedge style box. The box has no back to it so the Treecreeper's can enter the box and down to the base without leaving the tree trunk. They are wired onto rough barked conifer trees.
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