All 6 of the blue tit eggs hatched by the 15th May.
By my reckoning it was almost 5 weeks from the time the first egg was laid until the last had hatched.
So it looks like blue tit eggs have a reasonable shelf life.
In my experience (and this is a very subjective view) great tits seem to feed their chicks on a wider range of insects than blue tits; more spiders, flies and so on, some green caterpillars, but much fewer than blue tit parents would bring in to their chicks. I wonder if this great tit diet will affect the development of these adopted chicks.
Other than that, all is well and the great tits are performing as perfectly attentive, protective parents.
Unfortunately a spider has spun a web in front of the camera, so my images have a low contrast, soft focus look. I must send the wife up the ladder this weekend to give the camera a clean!
One disadvantage of putting this box on our maple tree (as opposed to an open site) is that it doesn't get much natural light once the leaves of the tree unfold during April.
I can turn the box lights on, but with the spider web over the lens, it is a bit like turning on full-beam while driving in fog ...most of the light just shines straight back at you!
some sort of stepper motor spiderweb wipers?
ReplyDeleteI have a camera with the Sony IMX307 sensor and get colour video of bluetits in my birdbox with just daylight.
ReplyDeleteYes, most of the time we get colour video OK with just daylight. At dawn & dusk we may need the lights on, because the female normally settles down after sunset and leaves the nest just before sunrise.
DeleteAlso, with this nest mounted to a tree, as the leaves develop in May, a lot of the natural light is blocked out. So on dull days we sometimes turn the lights on. We also have a frosted plastic window on the side of this box which certainly helps.