Nesting season 2001
Broad Street, Guildford, UK.
Page nine.
26th May 2001. Another warm and sunny day. Here is a picture of the eight-day-old chicks in nest box 1.
Chicks at 8 days in box 1
Our birds have been very busy all day. The female comes in very late, in the deep twilight, and keeps looking out into the gloom.
Last light, Saturday 26th May 2001
Perhaps she has spotted something outside. Later on, there is a threat.
Night threat
27th May 2001. Sunday. In the morning the bird leaves early.
Leaving, still fluffed.
She has been waiting for the first opportunity to get started on the work of the day.
First light.
In the early hours before dawn, she has managed to catch a few spells of uninterrupted sleep. The chicks are restless underneath her, pecking at her tummy and thrashing around. This has no effect whatsoever; she is really tired. The previous night's nest maintenance and chick-guarding went on until well after midnight.
Asleep in the small hours, untidily.
Later in the day she awaits arrival of food, carried in by the male.
Waiting expectantly
The male arrives and shares his offerings. Food trips happen every 2-3 minutes throughout much of the day.
Sharing food parcel.
When both parents are absent, the chicks sometimes go walkabout in the nest.
Chick out of nest cup.
When the male arrives, he often does so in style.
Male arrving flamboyantly
The female spends much time cleaning out under the nest cup of chicks.
Cleaning and maintenance
During the day, an inquisitive starling sticks its beak into the hole
Starling threat
It is easily driven away; in any case it has no chance as the hole is much too small.
Driven off
28th May 2001. Bank holiday Monday. The chicks in box 2 are about four or five days old now, and we can see their wing feathers starting to sprout.
Chicks in nest box 2, early morning.
There seems to be no shortage of suitable food locally. That may be why we can support two nesting boxes within a few tens of metres of each other. There is a marked difference in the behaviour and competence of the birds in the two boxes. The birds in box 1 with the infra-red camera seem to be far more professional about their activities. There has been very little fluttering; the female seems to be able to maintain her coiffure and composure with a minimum of preening and self-maintenance. The male is highly supportive and can often be seen outside on the wire, caterpillar in beak, awaiting his turn. Their flight paths are direct, swift, and purposeful. In contrast, the birds in box 2 fly around rather like a child's radio controlled model aircraft, in a tentative manner. The female spends far more of her time in the nest box.
29th May 2001. Tuesday. Early this morning, at 03:30 BST, our bird is asleep in the NE corner of the box 1, above the heaving and scratching chicks. At about 03:50 she lunges with a startle reaction, as if driving off a threat. Her beak hits the nest box wall with a loud bang, which wakes her up. Nonchalantly, she looks around once, and settles straight back to sleep. This whole activity looks like a dream, or nightmare. One wonders whether these birds have REM sleep, when they dream, and non-REM sleep which is very deep. This would appear to be the case, because sometimes our bird is completely unaware of the earthquake of chicks all around and under her.
At 04:40 our bird wakes up, as it is now quite light outside, and the chicks have now detected this light and are becoming more active. She spends five minutes systematically working around the nest cup, upside down, presumably mucking out the night soil. What appears to happen, is that she pokes the chick emanations under the nest materials at the base of the nest. Certainly, when we cleared out both nests after last year's activities, there was a great deal of light grey dust underneath the nest fabric.
At 04:45 the male arrives and perches on the telephone wire outside, singing and carrying food. Immediately, the female cocks her head and departs in a great hurry, leaving the box clear for the male to arrive, and start the morning's feeding routine. Arrival of food is accompanied by frenzied cheeping on the part of the youngsters, beaks and mouths at the ready. A crow (large, fearsome) takes a passing interest from the fence top. After five minutes, feeding gets under way in earnest, and for the next twenty or twenty-five minutes there are twenty visits (counted) by the adult birds, culminating in them both arriving simultaneously, and having a little squabble over who gets first feeding rights. For every visit by the sleep-deprived female, there are two visits by the male, who appears to be refreshed by his uninterrupted night. Quantities of enormous poo sacs are removed by both parents. These are taken over the fence into the great beyond, so as not to attract potential predators.
Our birds, this year, are more circumspect of humans than were last year's pair. Attempts to photograph a bird arriving with a caterpillar, from the vantage point of an open window just 18 inches above the bird box roof, have been unsuccessful. Both birds approach, sit on the wires, flutter, squawk, and fly to within 3 feet of the nest hole, but they do not land and display to camera.
In the afternoon, a family party went to the Lido, a construction of the Depression in the 1930s, still fortunately in existence. Beside the 50-yard outdoor pool was an old Tannoy(tm?) loudspeaker, with a fretwork wood grille and some decayed fabric in the gaps. An opportunistic family of Parus Caeruleus had made their nest home inside this old speaker, which is now presumably defunct. They were energetically feeding their young, flying in and out of the fabric hole behind the grille. Closer to home, the chicks in box 1 have developed a squawk to accompany their fluting cheeps, when food is in the offing.
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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......