Nesting season 2001
Broad Street, Guildford, UK.
Page four.
Roosting page, October 2000 to February 2001
13th April 2001. Good Friday. Today, the new pair of birds were seen to enter the box 1 at least four times, together as a couple. They also managed to repel some competition for the box. The male bird spent much time posturing at his reflection in the camera cover, and flying up to the wiring to tap at the box. Clearly, he has been sensitised by the presence of competitors outside. No nest materials were brought in.
14th April 2001. Easter Saturday. This was the day that nest building started in earnest. Again, competitors were around, culminating in a Great Fight inside the box. The resident birds were uneasy for much of the day, bringing in some material and then sitting on it for an hour at a time to preserve ownership of the territory. Eventually, an unwelcome visitor arrives....
He flutters his wings for twenty seconds before diving into the box. We hastily switch to the inside camera, and what follows is a minute and a half of what, if it was occuring in public between two male chickens, would be a totally illegal cook fight. Unfortunately we can't post the video of this activity, but let it be said that those people who get their kicks out of watching pugilists beat the living daylights out of each other would not have been disappointed. First, you may click here for a 668Kbyte half minute .wav sound file of some of the battle. Then, here are the birds about to get to grips with each other.
24th April 2001. Ten days of nest-construction (in box 1) have passed since the Great Fight on Easter Saturday. On the other hand, box 2 has contained a lined, and complete, nest and seems to have been temporarily abandoned.
The weather has been cold and wet, with a strong northerly wind for much of the time. Last year (which was also cold in April) the first egg was laid on the 23rd April. Our bird has, since 20th April, been bringing in straw to put on top of the existing moss. On the 19th and 20th the bird roosted all night in the nest. It did not appear on the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, but came in again on the 24th (another wet day) after even still yet more nest-straw addition.
Photographs of the bird show it to be larger; this is optical enlargement as it is sitting on several centimetres of nest and is closer to the camera lens. It is possible to see the shine on its head feathers; it is quite the opposite (in appearance) to the scratty bird reported in earlier pages. It looks sleek and attractive. It has spent much time up in the eaves of the box, tapping on the camera and poking its head into the lens (out of focus). It has also been having a go at the camera-box supports and the cable that brings us the pictures.
Again, we see (in this third individual) the characteristic wing stretch into a vee (photo on an earlier page) and the extension of wing feathers, just before taking to flight. We deduce that this is characteristic of Parus caeruleus.
Outside in the garden there is still much activity by potential competitors and by the bird's mate. It has taken to sitting in the nest hole, half out and half in, watching the goings-on in the garden and the surrounding trees. Every now and then it will posture on the nest; the nest is now thick enough that the bird can see out, standing on the nest materials and craning its head.
Activity in the garden is greatly enhanced by the short spells of sunshine. Bird calls are much more in evidence as is coming-and-going, when the sun shines. Our bird has been concentrating her building activities in the first part of the morning, and the time from 4pm to ninety minutes before dusk. If the sun comes out, she is encouraged to bring in more stuff. The nest is probably now larger than it need be; certainly it is larger than the nests in 1999 and 2000.
This evening our bird has been preening (after dark) most vigorously, scratching itself with exceedingly rapid leg vibrations and using its beak on all wing and tail feathers, and under its wing-pits and down its belly. We have not seen a bird which has preened as energetically as this. Perhaps the extended 11 day nest-building period has allowed the heebie-jeebies to build up and find shelter in the nest materials.
27th April 2001. Eggs are arriving. Today we have two, number one was laid on the 26th April. As is common with Parus caeruleus, the bird, at first, hides the eggs beneath the nest materials. There will be one egg every morning for 9-11 days. Then there will be about 14 days of incubation, on a clutch of about ten eggs, and hatching will happen all at once (within a day or so). The male bird will then assist in feeding the brood, and 19 days later (a few days longer if the weather is inclement) the youngsters will make their first flight.
Thus we can put dates to our expected activities. Egg laying will be over by about the 5th May, hatching will happen about 19th May or a day or two later, and fledging may be expected between the 7th and 10th June. Watch these pages.
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Looking at the fight pictures above, the nest material now fills the box above the space where the birds were fighting. Our mother has no trouble at all in looking out the hole when standing on the nest.
The weather is much warmer, about 15 Celsius. The bird stayed out most of the day, returning at 19:22 BST, uncovered the eggs, left again, and then popped back in, and settled for the night at about 19:40.
This bird is definitely concerned about the camera and the camera lens. She spends a lot of time looking up, and repeatedly jumps up and hangs on to the lead, tapping on the box and peering (in an unfocussed way) at the works. Every time she leaves the box, she has a little tap at the plastic camera cover. This is useful to us humans, as it provides a distinctive audible signal on the microphone and alerts us to come and look at the monitor.
She has been fussing over the eggs this evening, turning them and adjusting their position in the half-formed nest cup by digging beneath it with her beak, and by wriggling on the eggs with her front and legs.
2nd May 2001. Our bird, in box 1 which is equipped with the camera, has been assiduously laying her regulation "one egg a day" for the last seven days, and today, early in the morning, she gave us a good view of all seven eggs. In the evening she came in early, at about 17:00 BST and began to turn the eggs, and then settled down to brood seriously for the first time. It is likely that there will be more eggs in the mornings of the next two or three days. The nest has been lined with (what looks like) horse hair or sheep wool (there are horses and sheep locally), but with very few feathers. Two cats have been active in the garden, fishing in the garden pond. In box 2, a sitting bird was seen this evening at about dusk when we removed the top for inspection. We thought that this other nest had been abandoned after construction, but now have hopes for a second family. This sequence of events repeats what happened last year, when the box 2 nest was also built well in advance and then left. Just as last year, box 2 nest is very much neater in its construction. Both boxes are occupied by territorial Parus caeruleus despite being only 30 metres apart.
There are many pictures of the kind of activity now proceeding, on the pages from earlier years. Please see the links on the page "Old birdsite" below.
Old birdsite http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/D.Jefferies/bird/birdsite.html
Lifeforms pictures http://www.eryptick.net/lifeforms.htm
Email dj@eryptick.net
diary continues......