Egg dumping?

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

Box hatchlings

The morning was spent mentoring James on his patch in his first year of recording with Daniel who was my mentor when I started. The morning started off warm, soon clouded over, the wind got up and the temperature dropped. There's a big difference in activity since my last visit two weeks ago and through watching back we were able to find 2 Linnet nests at NL, 1 suspected Willow Warbler nest at N2 and a flushed Woodpigeon with 2 eggs so a reasonable morning


On my own patch in the woods the first nest box eggs have hatched, a clutch of 6 Great Tits. Records have tumbled with this pair having smashed 7 days off the earliest nest box egg since the scheme began in 2013 and knocking 9 days off the earliest Great Tit record.


The reason for not being in a rush to get the second count of boxes with eggs is now for all to see with the images below - a Blue Tit clutch of 9 eggs and one of 10 eggs.


Two Song Thrush nests are still active with all young at FM, one nest containing three, one containing one. Another one to check tomorrow.

 Blue Tit 9 eggs

 Blue Tit 10 eggs

    Song Thrush chick

Views from the wood

 Nuthatch 8 eggs 

Blue Tit 8 eggs 

2 Blackbird FS

and the Bluebells are out!  

When the North wind doth blow

everything stops


Tonight after work I checked approx. 40 boxes in the first section of wood and once again as per last year, signs of delayed incubation and / or delayed laying mid clutch. The section I checked, I am totally convinced that this area is a couple of degrees colder than other areas being slightly higher and more exposed. I think next season I may try an experiment with thermometers at either end and in the middle.


Some slightly better news - bagged my second Wren nest record tonight, 2 eggs.

Top avian architecture?

Look at the Wren nest above that I found this evening. The pulse was racing with this discovery but would it be N4, NL or a nest record with eggs? Surely this piece of avian architecture is worth eggs! With record amounts of adrenalin pumping round the body I inserted my finger and - it wouldn't go in! It was a woody growth on the trunk with just enough moss on it to fool this nest recorder. 

Two tit nests just started being built so check those empty boxes one more time. Also had a few just started to lay with many more boxes at NL ready for eggs.  



More hatchlings

Started off today on the coast, first Cormorant nest has hatched, 2 young with an egg still to hatch. I love baby Cormorant's they way their heads and necks move around like serpents is a pleasure to watch. One Cormorant nest (no eggs recorded) has completely disappeared.


Story for Cormorant now is -


1 X 2 BL NA + 1 egg, 6 on clutches of 4, 1 on a clutch of 3, 2 yet to lay


Shag -


3 on clutches of 3, 1 on incomplete clutch of 2


I also have 4 boxes in a private garden nr Truro where all four are occupied. Two Blue Tit's and 2 Great Tit's being the owners. The Blue Tit's have incomplete clutches of 3 eggs and 5 eggs,  one Great Tit box still at NL, and the other another mystery like one yesterday - 1 egg on the 15th, 4 cold uncovered eggs today. Incubation should probably have commenced on the 18th, both birds are still present so once again we'll have to wait and see


Over in the woods and the first of the lined Wren nests now has one egg, my LT Tit nest was due a visit any day so had one today - 2 young presumably BL NA and 4 eggs. The full picture on the boxes as follows -


35 with eggs
34 at NL
9 at N4
5 at N3
6 at N2
8 at N1
81 empty


Quietly confident that I should get around 80 make it to the eggs stage. The next couple of days will be spent checking the eggless nests again.

Fledgings and mysteries

A nest box round today checking all boxes in one section of wood that had no eggs during my last visit on Good Friday. En-route I had 5 open nests to check out, 4 Song Thrush and 1 Blackbird.


One Song Thrush brood (4) have fledged becoming my first fledged nest of the season -

 
Another has been predated, eggs hatched in two of them, and the Blackbird's have hatched

Song Thrush

Blackbird's

On to the nest boxes - most boxes without eggs in the section I surveyed today are now either empty, N4 or NL. A couple of mysteries/oddities have cropped up though starting with Box 10 which on the 14th contained 3 Great Tit eggs, cold and covered over. Today it contained 6 eggs uncovered and cold so potential scenarios are desertion, predation of female or delayed incubation. As there's been good weather lately delayed incubation is unlikely, there were no alarming birds nearby so we'll have to wait and see on this one. Another unexpected occurrence was box 7. Last Friday it was N2 so expecting N4 or NL today, I was not expecting exactly the same nest as last week with a couple of white bits of fluff added finished off with 7 cold eggs! The last oddity was box 45. According to the note book last Friday it was empty, today NL so this pair have either built a whole nest and lined it in 7 days (rare but possible) or my box round last week of 190 boxes was in actual fact only 189 (which I doubt). Who knows.....


Also had a pair of alarming LT Tit but as I had the ladders under my arm they will have to wait until tomorrow. I've put a set down before, turned my back for a quick comfort break and they got nicked. Didn't see or hear anybody either!