LIST OF PAGES
Nest building
Initial egg-laying pictures
Second egg-laying pictures
Brooding pictures
More brooding pictures
Hatching pictures
Defence pictures
Epitaph
A truly excellent site about these birds
Visitors since 10th September 1999:
On the fifth day of sitting on the eggs, the female bird has now persuaded the male to bring her some morning food (8.50am). The food appears to consist of a juicy caterpillar.
The male bird is a little large for the entrance hole, so he takes about four tries to squeeze himself through it. Here he is entering the box.
Not surprisingly this causes much excitement in the female, who shakes her wings and chatters repeatedly. Here is a picture of the two birds; the male takes some time to get round to handing over his swag, and the female takes some persuading to take it from him.
The male looks up at the camera, giving it a penetrating stare; I wonder what he is thinking? (do birds think?)
Finally satisfied that this camera represents a negligible threat, he at last gets round to transferring the juicy caterpillar. It is possible this is as close as one gets to seeing birds kissing. It is important not to feel too sorry for the caterpillar or its parents; it is fulfilling its place in the grand scheme of things by being fed to the parus caeruleus. Come to that, it is also important not to feel too sorry for our fledgelings when they hatch and leave the nest, as about 2/3 of them will provide food for the sparrowhawk chicks which will be coming along nicely by then, and would starve without their daily supply of young parus caeruleus.
His business finished, the mate departs. This he finds somewhat easier than arriving. It seems that this is a token feed, for ten minutes later the female departs also, to go foraging or pay an early morning call of nature.
Examination of the video for later in the day reveals one other feed, at 10am, and then nothing until at least 3pm. These birds feed early and late in the day. Early, to replace the energy reserves depleted in the previous night, and late to build up a supply of energy for the following night.
Here is a sequence of pictures of several minutes of compelling video. It would be nice to be able to post this much video at a reasonable download overhead...well, maybe next year.
First, joyful chirps are heard from our bird who presents herself in front of the entrance, wings fluttering too fast to resolve on the video, and after a few seconds the male pops his head in, getting his shoulders stuck as before.
Then the male enters, again with some difficulty, giving us some fine shots of the caterpillar in his beak as he courts the female by offering her the juicy morsel. He is not too quick in passing on his booty, which may have taken some finding. Here are four pictures of the sequence when he is showing off his trophy... did he perhaps win the cup?
He waves the caterpillar about.
He lifts it up, using his wings to gain altitude.
Still a bit suspicious of the camera and electronics, he shows the caterpillar to the camera, so that there is no mistake.
Finally he crouches down on his partner, and after several attempts he passes it to her. He then waves goodbye on the way out.
He has left behind a contented partner, holding half the caterpillar and no longer behaving in high excitement.
She eats it, takes a perfunctory look around the nest and at the eggs, and departs into the garden for a few minutes (possibly to say thankyou?)
The male has been in frequently to feed the female. We have now installed our video frame capture electronics and hope to post some more pictures shortly. There is a compelling few minutes when the bird returns to find a bluebottle in the nest; this takes her 10 seconds to catch, and transport into the great outdoors.
During the middle of the brooding period, our bird became much more conscientious about sitting, leaving on average for only 3 minutes at a time, and spending periods of about 20 minutes sitting on the eggs between food sorties. The male bird started to provide significant food about day 8 of the brooding. The feeding sequence seems to be that he sits on the telephone wire outside the nest and calls. The female looks out, calls back, leaves the nest, which is then occupied by the male with his caterpillar. He looks interestedly at the eggs, and attempts to count them. Shortly afterwards the female returns and they take several tries to transfer the caterpillar. The male then leaves abruptly.
The display of the female, where she half-extends her wings and flutters them very rapidly, is less often observed now that she has trained the male to do his stuff.