Our bird did not return from an early morning
sortie on the 10th May 1999.
Up-to-date nesting SEASON (2002)
Nest building
Initial egg-laying pictures
Second egg-laying pictures
Brooding pictures
Feeding while brooding
More brooding pictures
Hatching pictures
Defence pictures
A truly excellent site about these birds
Visitors since 27th September 2000:
Our bird spent a long time on the night of Sunday 9th May settling her brood. She appeared uneasy and weary, having been feeding them unaided for two days. At 10.30pm she was still hard at it, ferreting around in the bottom of the nest and trying to get the (much grown) chicks well disposed in the depression so that she could sit on them and keep them warm.
In the middle of the night, at 1.30 am, she appeared to be exhausted and was sound asleep on them. In the morning, at 6.30am, an hour after sunrise, there was no sight of her. We waited for 40 minutes, gradually becoming more concerned. She still had not reappeared at 8.30 when we left for work.
Perhaps she was taken by a sparrowhawk, buzzard, or even a cat. Perhaps she decided to abandon the nestlings as her mate has not been seen for some time. Perhaps the same predator had taken him.
At 1.30pm she had not been back, and we assumed she was lost. The front was taken off the nestbox and the following pictures taken of the camera and the orphans.
We are all very sad. Statistically, only one in every 25 nestlings makes it through a full life. Thinking about it that way, if these birds were mostly successful breeders we would be overrun by hordes of parus caeruleus. Perhaps there is a lesson here about the necessity of a balance in Nature; continual growth of a population is eventually unsustainable.
The chicks became more and more agitated until nightfall, then gradually sank into a comatose slumber, as they were by now getting cold. In the morning at 7.45 we deconstructed the nestbox and buried the dead chicks under the prunus tree. It is too late to start again with parus caeruleus in 1999; but we have taken the front hole off the box and put it back up in case some robins wish to use it in May/June.
What is left in the memory is the industrious and cheerful character of these birds, inspiring us all to put in long hours at work and then assemble web pages about them in the small hours of the morning. These birds were unaware of the impact they have had on the watchers. We are left with over 100 hours of unedited videotape, and when the grief is abated we shall edit down the tapes and relive the short life of these birds in the final spring of the second Millennium.
Thank you for watching.
d.jefferies@surrey.ac.uk David Jefferies 10th May 1999