There
are no signs of any eggs in the nest today. We hope that that means
that they have all hatched out, but it may be because the unhatched eggs
have been pushed under the lip of the nest cup so that we cannot see them.
It is
difficult to count the chicks. Even if you could separate the pink
blobs that you can see, there could well be others at the edge of the nest
that you cannot see!
I think you can see 6 chicks here!
This
fine bird is Boris who has come with some food, only to find that Kelly is
not in the nest box.
He still seems to have much more of a problem in feeding the chicks than Kelly does. I'm sure he will find he has much less difficulty when they are a bit bigger.
I
have included this close up of Boris's head so that you can see the typical
look of a bluetit male's head in the breeding season.
His head feathers are already looking tousled and unruly. As time passes they will become more so and by the end of the breeding season, say mid June, he could well lose most of them.
Now he just looks masculine!
Kelly
is looking more like Fluffy every day! You can see here that the
feathers on her back are looking ruffled although her wing feathers seem
totally unaffected.
Presumably, any gene that caused damage to a birds wing feathers wouldn't have much chance of being passed on to the next generation!
Here
you can see some of her lower feather which are also growing out of
control. Still, I expect it makes for a nice warm comfortable covering
for the chicks!
Shortly
after Kelly has settled down on the chicks, Boris comes in with another
caterpillar. Where he gets them all from, I don't know - the oak tree
theoretically - but from the number he has brought in, it must be a good
caterpillar year!
Although
Kelly stayed clamped to the nest while Boris was around, directly he
departs, she manoeuvres herself out of it in order to feed the chicks.
Compare Kelly's head feathers with those of Boris in the picture four above! At least Kelly's head feathers, like those of most female bluetits, are smooth and even in texture - definitely more feminine!
A few
minutes later, Boris arrives with another caterpillar. His head is
blurred by his movement so you cannot see the texture of his head feathers
in order to compare them with Kelly's.
What an earth is all that pink stuff still very much in evidence around the nest?!