Live Stream of my Bird Box - Bluetits Nesting - Chicks Hatching Now

Soldato
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Lighting was just right earlier to get a few nice sharp stills.

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Soldato
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Starting to worry about the youngest. He suddenly looks like he's falling behind the others by quite some margin. H

he can compete for his fair share of the food but the others are suddenly dwarfing him. :(
 
Soldato
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We don't think that the male has been back for 24 hours so not sure what's happening there.

She will have a task on her hands of she has to provide 100% of the food.

Our feeders are topped up but she only takes peanut butter she doesn't make use of the other food including the mealworms which you'd think would be ideal.
 
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Bit of a disaster in my nest box. The female seems to have picked up some sort of illness. Throughout the day she has been getting progressively more erratic, pecking the box and tearing the nest apart. She's lost all interest in the chicks or her partner and now seems to have lost all mental awareness and even some body control. Don't expect her to last the night so that will be game over for the chicks.
 
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Bit of a disaster in my nest box. The female seems to have picked up some sort of illness. Throughout the day she has been getting progressively more erratic, pecking the box and tearing the nest apart. She's lost all interest in the chicks or her partner and now seems to have lost all mental awareness and even some body control. Don't expect her to last the night so that will be game over for the chicks.

Im not sure if this will work but if they don’t return you could take them get an incubator of some sort.

Maybe a heat lamp or something? You may be able to save them but means feed them with same stuff as the parents have been.
 
Soldato
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Bit of a nerve wracking day here today.

The youngest does not appear to be developing at the same rate. He is now a lot smaller than the others and doesn't show the same enthusiasm / instinct for food when she returns to the nest. Often he doesn't respond to her arrival at all. So have to keep our fingers crossed there. Its not looking too good for him so the next day or two will be very important for him hopefully he gets enough food to catch up.

However it does appear that the adult male is gone. Given how dedicated he had been to the nest I'd have to assume that he has been killed. We've not seen him in 24 hours and looking back through the recordings I don't think hes been around all weekend.

So that is a very big blow as he was doing most of the food finding work both the chicks and for her.

Although we have lots of food out including live meal worms she doesn't seem interested in them she is only taking peanut butter back for the chicks. I have plenty of this to keep her supplied but I can't imagine its going to be enough on its own for the chicks. She has to scrape a clump out of the jar and carry it back and then almost wipe it off on the inside of the chicks mouth so its not exactly practical either. The male was feeding it to the female a lot (she clearly likes it) but she could actively take it form his beak, the chicks cant do that.

We've got plenty of sunflower seed out and live meal worms both of which I've tried putting on clear view close to her flight path but she hasn't shown any interest. The blackbirds and sparrows hoover it up before she has much of a chance anyway but she doesn't seem to want them. She seems to prefer insects and worms which is understandable its the better diet for the chicks but I'm not sure if she will be able to supply the required amount to feed all four chicks without the male being present. Especially given that one of them is already falling behind.

I wish the news was better but lets see how tomorrow goes.
 
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Im not sure if this will work but if they don’t return you could take them get an incubator of some sort.

Maybe a heat lamp or something? You may be able to save them but means feed them with same stuff as the parents have been.

The male is still bringing food so there's a chance one or two might make it. The problem is temperature as the male will not brood them at night and they are too young to keep themselves warm.

I generally never interfere and doubt I could raise them anyway.
 
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Unfortunately the female died around 11 pm I removed her body as it was covering the chicks and would have prevented the male from feeding them. There's was no sign of physical injury so it must have been some sort of virus. You'd think there was enough of that going around as it is. Having watched her closely for the last couple of years (she roosted in my boxes over winter as well as breeding) it was strange to hold her in my hands.

There are two chicks left and if the male can find enough food and doesn't abandon them there's still a chance for them.
 

UTT

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I've fixed a box to our shed at the Bottom of the garden and we currently have a a couple of blue **** nesting in it after years of trying to attract birds to the garden.

I would have loved to have a camera in there having been reading this thread but today shows just how fickle mother nature can be and I'm now glad I can't see in.

I've nicknamed my pair mr & mrs tit and they are constantly back and forth brining food

I'm gutted reading the stories above about the bird dieing in the box and the other. This has probably been more poignant to me than the daily bull about Corona.
 
Soldato
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@saddler Fingers crossed that the male can step up.

Before our male disappeared he actually did sit on the chicks to keep them warm. If When he came to bring food the female was out for a few successive visits he would stop his food runs and sit on them until she returned.

Then she would arrive and absolutely scream the place down for him to get off them so she could get back on the cup of the nest.

I know this is the exception rather than the rule and it's highly unlikely but he may have the instincts to keep them going.

How feathered are they at this point? That will be the key to their temperature won't it then it's down to food.
 
Soldato
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So the situation this morning is this:

Still no male but we knew that. I'd be unbelievably surprised if he turned up now. Given how hard he worked on this nest he must have perished.

Three of the chicks seemed very lethargic this morning when she first woke up. With only really one asking for food. They appear to have picked up a little and are now all moving and all asking for food.

Scruffy is trying to split her time between keeping them warm - on a very windy day here - and going out to find food.

The problem is that its taking her 15 minutes to come back with one caterpillar and she then resorts to a few more break fulls of peanut butter. She remains uninterested in our live meal worms although we do think she fed them sunflower hearts once earlier today.

I admire her effort. The bottom line though is that there is probably less than 50% of the previous levels of food coming in as the male was doing most of the work and he was very efficient at it having found a good source of Caterpillars.

It is all going to rest on how much food she can give them over the next 24 hours and whether its enough to keep them alive and keep them developing at the correct rate.
 
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Update on my nest box, the 2 chicks are still alive and the male is doing a sterling job feeding them. The nighttime temperatures for the next few days don't look too bad so there's still a chance.
 
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