Saturday 12 May 2012

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.

Above: Time lapse recording of today in the nest. You see our blue tit leave the nest and the chicks slowly stop moving. Not easy viewing.

We had put mini mealworms out for her.  And sunflower hearts and suet pellets.  I never actually saw her at these feeding stations, but she certainly had plenty of opportunities to use them.  She seemed to be busy in and out, and fed the chicks.

Considering the hours of effort she put into making the nest, laying and incubating the eggs you'd think she would be keen to stick around and finish the job.

We don't think she had a mate.  We never captured 2 adult birds in the nest box and never saw 2 in the garden.  So perhaps being a single parent was just all too much for her and she simply deserted the nest?  Seems unlikely.  Or perhaps she had an accident and was injured or killed by a predator.  We do have a couple of local magpies.  We will probably never know.

What we do know is that we now have a nest box with blue tit chick bodies and the fun is over.

Very brutal.  But that's the way nature is sometimes I suppose.

Here's the last image taken of the adult blue tit at 10:23:

And here are the chicks looking well just 3 minutes later, some with their mouths open waiting for mum:

And this is them towards the end of the day:

Rest in peace little ones. x