Bluetit Diary    May 2015 (1)

 

 

Saturday 2nd May, 2015

The females in all three boxes have stopped laying any more eggs and have started incubating them.  In Box1 Meg has 8 eggs, in Box2 Suzie and Rosie have about 18 between them, and in Box3 Sally has 7!

This is Box1 where there appear to be 8 eggs, that last of which was laid on Tuesday 28th April.  This means that they should start hatching around Sunday 10th May.

In Box2, Pete has just brought some food to the nest box.  Whether he thinks that the eggs have started hatching or not I really don't know.  Perhaps it doesn't matter anyway as so long as the food is small enough for a chick, one of the females will eat it even if there isn't a chick to give it to!

Once both the females have left the nest, we can see that there are still about 18 eggs in this nest box.  The last pair of eggs was laid on Friday 24th April, so these chicks should start hatching around Wednesday 6th May!  Not long to go now!

Finally, Box3 has 7 eggs.  Although we didn't see it until a day later, the last egg was probably laid on Thursday 23rd April.  However, it was a day or two before incubation started, so we think that they should start hatching on Friday 8th May, a couple of days after the eggs in Box2.