Old nests - tits

Once the tits have fledged, the boxes are cleared out as tits in our area only have a single brood.

The pictures below show:

Left - a nest where the chicks hatched but died, probably due to the parent birds being predated.
The cup shape surrounds eggs and chicks during their early development and is made by the parent incubating the eggs and keeping small chicks warm.

Right - a nest where all the chicks fledged.
The nest material becomes flattened from the weight of the chicks and their trampling of the nest prior to fledging.

Tit nests to show difference in shape over time

Picture courtesy of Shirley Wittering.

Bird Boxes 2011

The bird boxes started to be checked for occupancy in March 2011. By mid-April all 14 boxes had nests and in 6 cases eggs were present. By the end of April, 12 boxes had eggs visible, or a parent bird sitting.

Blue Tit Eggs

Between 11th May - 20th May, the young in 11 boxes were ringed (2 nests not completed, and 1 box predated). By 30th May all but one of the nestlings had fledged and left the boxes - a great success!

In total the numbers of birds fledged is up on 2010:

Great tits                               47

Blue tits                                 37

From 89 eggs, we had 84 nestlings and of those ringed, nearly 100% fledged for both species.
An excellent result for our 2nd year with bird boxes.