Elizabeth & Malcolm's
bluetit pages

Welcome to our diary for the 2008 season

This web site is a diary of the breeding behaviour of bluetits and great tits in our garden in Mayford, Surrey since early 2001.  Although for the first few years we only had bluetits occupying our boxes, for the last three years one of them has been occupied by a great tit family and this has given us an insight into how similar in behaviour the two species are. 

The overview page gives the dates of the principal events, such as the start of nest building, egg laying, hatching and fledging.  You can compare these dates with what is happening this year  and see if climate change has had a noticeable effect in Mayford!  Each year has its own Summary page which gives more details of the year's activities.

Keep up to date with our latest postings by clicking on Latest Entry.  Alternatively, during the day you can watch what is happening now in our nest boxes by viewing the webcams.

The image at the top of the page was taken in June 2002 and shows the parents with their brood shortly before they fledged.  The adult female is on the left and the male is on the right.  Eleven eggs were laid in two groups with a gap of 16 days between them.  Six chicks hatched and five flew the nest. This is a story of success when we had expected failure and a lesson to all those who think their nest has been deserted - don't give up hope too soon! (And DON'T INTERFERE - it's illegal anyway!)

Latest news Wednesday 28th May All Sally's chicks fledged successfully this morning!  This was one of the four which left the nest between 3 and 7 minutes past 10 o'clock. The first batch of 6 chicks all fledged between 12 and 24 minutes past 7 this morning.

If you are interested in our site, you may like to visit the Bigg Bird Forum at  http://forum.biggonline.co.uk   As well as joining in the discussions about general birding topics, you can also use it as an alternative to our Feedback mechanism.  Why not take a look?

This page was last updated on Friday, 30 May 2008 12:44  Visitors since February 2002: