After losing most of yesterday to rain, I was delighted this morning to wake up to dry weather. It had rained overnight but at 8am it was dry. What I hadn't banked on was the temperature - to say it was cold was an understatement. It really did feel like January. The main aim of the morning was to try to gain some more full clutch sizes but unfortunately many of the females were sitting tight being fed on the nests. I don't have a license to lift birds off the nest, only a trained ringer can do this so I have to wait until the female comes off the nest. I do check the box first though just in case they are already off feeding. Lifting Blue Tit's by ringers is acceptable but in my opinion this practice with Great Tit's is a huge no no. If I know a Great Tit is incubating quite often I wont even check the box first, choosing instead to wait for her to come off and feed instead. A paper written a few years ago suggested that 24% of lifted Great Tit then deserted the nest. I need no further convincing about the delicate nature of Great Tit.
One Blue Tit clutch has risen from 2 eggs on the 24th to 11 eggs today. As they are capable of only laying one egg a day basic mathematics say that the nest should contain a maximum of nine eggs so at the moment I am assuming another female has dumped a couple in there. Hopefully tomorrow will be warmer.....
a site of egg dumping? - 11 eggs in 9 days. Something's wrong
Blue Tit 6 eggs
Blue Tit 7 eggs
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