We're back up and running for another year of bird box nest watching. We have a blue tit settling herself in!

We left the nest alone for a few days after the disappointment in May, partly in case the adult returned and partly because we couldn't face the job. Then we opened up the nest box to empty it and clean it out.

It's all gone horribly wrong today.  Our blue tit mum spent the morning feeding the chicks in the same way that she had yesterday, in and out of the nest box every few minutes.  All the chicks looked well - everything looked normal.

At 10:23 this morning she left the nest box.  She never returned.  The chicks were full of energy at first but slowly ran out of steam, and with no food they stopped moving by the end of the day.

What a clever girl our blue tit mum is! It's been quite a day and the whole family are tucked up in bed, probably exhausted.

Here's a time lapse video covering 5am-9pm (daylight) from today. It reduces to about 1 minute. Starts with 8 eggs. Ends with 6 chicks and 2 eggs. Mum is busy all day in and out attending to the chick's needs. An image is taken every 30 seconds. (The video was produced using MakeAVI at 30 frames per second.)

Here's a short video of the chicks at about 10:30 this morning - 90 minutes after the first one hatched. Four eggs remain unhatched. They can barely hold their heads up. Their eyes are closed. They gape for food. Mum visits with some food but they seem not to notice her. She leaves and then visits again.

Hooray! This morning just before 9am the first chicks started hatching. View this gallery, step through the images taken 30 seconds apart. Amazingly the first 2 eggs start to crack open within 30 seconds of each other!

Our blue tit's patience and dedication is nothing short of amazing. She has sat on her nest for countless hours now.

Here's some shots of her doing her thing. And today was warmer (thank goodness) and we noticed she spent more time out of the nest box. 

It's been 13 days since the first egg was laid. Mum blue tit (presumably) has been incubating the eggs for a few days now, still 8 full eggs. She looks very settled in her home. 

Some video of our blue tit entering the nest box and settling down on her eggs.