We’ve been having daytime visitors to our colour birdcam box for a while now. Earlier this year a Great Tit was regularly roosting in the box at night but today some blue tits have started nesting, taking out some of the droppings left by the Great Tit and bringing in moss. We will have to wait and see whether this nest is successful or not because a wasp has also been in the box for the last few days and may have even started building a nest too (white blob at the right of the birdcam picture).
-
- Starting to nest
-
- Roosting
-
- Seven Eggs?
Update: The colourcam was offline for a while during the holidays. Four eggs were on view on the 27th April when the camera was switched back on. Incubation of the 7 or 8 eggs started around 1st May.
Please let us know what you have seen in our colourcam box by leaving a comment on this post.
After starting to build the nest during the day on Thursday, one of the blue tits also roosted the night in the box. We investigated the camera obstruction on Friday to find a wasp had started to build a nest on the camera lens! We slid out the camera housing from the box without disturbing the nest and cleaned the lens. Hopefully the wasp will stay away.The blue tits watched from a nearby tree and went straight back in the box after we left.
Four eggs were spotted in the nest on 27th April which suggests the first egg was laid around 23rd April. The blue tits seem to be sitting on the eggs more today so maybe incubation has started with 7 or 8 eggs having been laid. We might expect the eggs to hatch around the middle of May.
When will the eggs hatch?
Blue tits incubate their eggs for 12-16 days so if our blue tits started incubating on around 1st May then we might get chicks next Friday (13th May) or that weekend.
CHICK JUST HATCHED !
The female blue tit left the nest. A minute later we saw an egg move and we couldn’t take our eyes off the screen. The chick had an eggshell on its head. The female return and didn’t seem to notice the chick hatching and just sat on it. She must have heard something because she looked and started helping the chick out and eating the eggshell.
We are now watching the second chick hatch, it’s tiny and amazing. A dream come true.
Hi Year 6, I think the second chick has only just hatched now (3 pm). I’ve just seen the female remove a large bit of egg shell.
iv been waching the eggs in the b&w box and the coulerd box the blue tit is lying on the eggs and in the b&w you can see a little bird
If you watch the B&W box carefully you might be lucky and see three Tree Sparrow chicks. They might even fledge this weekend.