Elizabeth & Malcolm's
bluetit pages

Welcome to our diary for the 2010 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  three of the last four 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.  We have now added some video clips to our site which you can access by clicking Videos in the left hand menu.

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 18 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!)

Recent News Friday 4th June Here is the last of Donna's chicks fledging.  Once they leave the nest box the chicks never return, unless they do the following year as a parent! So the diary has come to an end for another year - and not a bad one, certainly not as bad as 2007 and 2008, although only 8 chicks from three boxes cannot be said to be a roaring success either! Roll on 2011!

If you have any questions about blue and great tits, 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 Thursday, 10 June 2010 18:52  Visitors since February 2002: