I am behind on my blog posts again… time is whizzing past and I am very involved with the Wildlife Whisperer site at the moment and it is taking up a lot of my time. Do check my main website and Twitter feeds though as I add to them on a daily basis.
A lot has happened in the last week… mainly to say that I now have two empty, after the nine chicks in the Plum tree box fledged on Sunday and then my 5 great tit chicks fledged from the side view nest box on Tuesday morning…. I was lucky enough to see a couple go before I went to work.
Seems strange to have those two nest boxes empty now. I have been thrilled with the images I have got from them though and I have thoroughly enjoyed following these family’s lives for the last month or so. The daily images I took from these boxes are available on my main website, so follow the links below to take a look…. it is quite amazing when you look at the daily growth, especially toward the end when their feathers come through and they seem to change so much on a daily basis!
I still have blue tits in the oak tree nest box, but the pictures from this box are not so clear. There were 7 eggs, five hatched, but today, one of the chicks died… I am not sure why. It was quite harrowing watching the female try to get this dead chick out of the nest box. I had seen the same thing happen on one of the Wildlife Whisperer nest boxes. The chicks at this stage, are far too big and heavy for the adults to remove it complete, so they take it apart until they can mange to struggle out with the body. It is essential that the chick is removed, or it risks the life of the other chicks. The flies were already gathering round the front of the nest box. Thankfully, she managed to remove it and the remaining four chicks look fine.
I have moved the outside cam now, over to this nest box. It is close to the entrance hole, so should give excellent pictures when the chicks look out. I am using i-catcher to try and capture the movement, but the adults come so quickly in and out of the nest box, it sometimes struggles to capture them.
The hedgehogs are still coming nearly every night… two sometimes. They had a big fight in the hedgehog box the other night. The foxes are also visiting in daylight just about every evening now, so if you have a spare moment, check out my live cams.
Until next time, here are some images from the last week or so in the nest boxes….
This slideshow requires JavaScript.