Monday, April 05, 2010

Birdbox - March Update

A month has passed since my last update, a little tweaking has been done to the setup but as yet we've had no arrivals in any of our two birdboxes.  Looking at how events happened last year (shown below), we are 3 weeks behind the first arrival.

At this point I'm not hopeful that our usual Bluetits will return this season, winter has lasted alot longer this year and we've not had many sunny spring mornings that usually attracts alot of birds out to our feeder.
 
Last Years Movements

12 Mar - Start of regular bird visits to birdbox
23 Mar - Start of nest building
02 Apr - Half way through the nest build
24 Apr - 2 eggs spotted in nest
25 Apr - 4 eggs now spotted in nest
26 Apr - final 5th egg spotted in nest
11 May - 3 chicks spotted
12 May - Extra chick spotted
16 May - 4 chicks still in next growning, 5th egg never hatched
21 May - Only 3 chicks seen in next
All 3 chicks left the nest by end of the month

2 comments:

Chris Cant said...

If you are checking nesting regularly, you could report your findings in the BTO Garden Nesting Survey: http://www.bto.org/gns/index.htm
You have to take notes once a week over the summer.

Gladys Hobson said...

We have many birds coming to our feeders and nesting in our trees and bushes, but it is the first time we have had a pair of wood pigeons nesting in a tree just 15ft from the house. We only hope they survive a peregrine that swoops down on the white pigeons that visit. (Amazing that they can carry them off!)