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Bottoms Up!

I have a short video of some of today’s activity in our Nestbox. I have taken many snapshots over the last two days and I will have some difficulty deciding which ones to use. For the moment I thought I would share the video below.

Blue tit Mum feeds chicks and does tidy-up after,
video 0:41 without background music, try 480p quality.

Hygiene in the nest is something I never really thought of. The chicks are eating now so… naturally this food has to go through them. Where does it go after that? Well, it can’t stay in the nest so the female removes it – usually by eating it! You will see this in the video above. She feeds the chick and then removes and eats a white substance from the chick’s tail end. She then can be seen diving into the nest cup to see if anymore housework is required before settling back into the cup and rotating the remaining egg with her feet.

How clever nature is – our female Blue Tit is a young bird yet she still knows how to care for her brood. I hope they all survive. It is difficult to get a picture at the moment that clearly shows all seven chicks and the one egg. I don’t know if the first few days are crucial for the bird’s survival – we will just have to wait and see. I have to be honest and say that tomorrow morning when I switch on the PC and look in the Nestbox that I will be a tad nervous – I hope I will be able to see them all. I also hope that the last egg will hatch tomorrow as otherwise the chick will be a bit behind the rest and perhaps struggle to get its share of the food at feeding times.

2 thoughts on “Bottoms Up!

  1. That is a remarkable picture … I love the blue bottom showing. It is quite amazing to think that a young mum knows exactly what to do to keep her nest clean.

    I’ll be back to see more pictures in the coming days!

  2. Hi Kate,

    I am having fun choosing which bits of footage to use. I don’t have software that captures every movement – I just look in on the box when I am working on my PC and often I don’t know what will happen next. It is great when I am able to tell a story of what’s going on.

    Yes, please do visit again.

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