Students, teachers and parents enjoyed watching the goings on in our school nest box again this year. Thanks to our caretaker, Mike,
we’ve had the privilege of viewing the secret world of blue tits for more than 15 years now.
Things were a bit slow to get started this year but when we returned to school after the Easter holidays the blue tit couple, who
had been checking out the nest, had started building.
The female laid her first egg on May 10th and by the 19th she had laid seven eggs and had started incubating. At this stage the male would normally be seen coming in and out feeding the female but unfortunately, this year’s dad seemed to disappear for most of the incubating period so the mum had to leave the eggs to find food for herself. Hatching began and by May 28th we had three chicks. As you can see, they are born blind and featherless.
And so began the busiest time in the nest. 5 chicks hatched and the parents had their work cut out, feeding the chicks (insects) and removing poo sacks! (Faecal sacks.) They also removed the unhatched eggs. Of the 5 that hatched, unfortunately two didn’t make it. But the remaining three chicks looked strong we were hopeful they would make it.
Sadly by the 9th of June only one chick was left alive and we could see the two dead chicks at the side of the nest. You’ll see from the picture that the last chick had his/her feathers now, just like the parents, and open eyes. We kept everything crossed he/she would make it.
Shortly after 9.30am on this Sunday 15 th of June, our one surviving blue tit chick fledged. Here you see one of the last pictures of
him/her, plucking up the courage to take that first flight!
We think the parents this year were very young and inexperienced. And Mike also thinks that the late start to nesting this year (possibly due to Storm Éowyn) may have contributed to some of the problems we saw this year.
Nonetheless, we’d like to say a huge thank you to Mike for, once again, making it possible for us to get a peek into this most secret of worlds.