Hello everyone. This is my first post and unfortunately a very sad one. For the past few weeks I have been viewing our nest box camera as a pair of blue tits busily prepared their nest and laid 8 eggs. Last Friday all the eggs hatched and for the past week both parents have been feeding the 8 chicks regularly and all appeared well.
Yesterday morning around 8am I checked the camera and all appeared well, the chicks were being fed and appeared lively. At around 5pm I returned home to find that all 8 chicks were very still. I thought nothing of it at the time but when I checked the footage between 6pm and 8pm there was not movement whatsoever and all 8 chicks had died.
I have been live streaming the nest on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnj-vYzqhH4yVVdBaHBqlRQ). At present I cannot view yesterday's footage apart from the last two hours - hopefully youtube will finish uploading it this evening and I'll be able to look back. From what I can see of the last two hours of yesterday and the footage that was filmed early this morning, one blue tit continues to be visiting the nest with a beak full of food however there is no sign of the other. This leads me to think that it's the male that's still visiting and something has possibly happened to the female. Would this make sense or could something else have happened for them to all die so suddenly? If one continued to be carrying food could they have died due to the cold and wet weather?
Could someone also advise me on whether I should remove the chicks or leave everything as it is? My instinct is to leave alone but would appreciate any help.
Thank you!
DM
Hi DM and welcome to the community forum; I'm sorry to hear about the failure of the blue tit nest/chicks and can only guess that maybe the adult female was predated whilst she was collecting food for her chicks if she was there early morning and not seen since. As you say, the chicks being fairly new and with no significant feathers would become cold quickly and they need constant feeding by both adults to survive as they can eat up to 100 insects/caterpillars per day (each chick )
Regarding removing the dead chicks or cleaning out the box, the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) suggests that you leave it as it is. In certain circumstances they would give alternative advice and if any chicks were alive but THIS LINK may provide some info for you.
Once again, I'm so sorry to hear the sad news but hope you get to see other fledglings in your garden at some stage. Good luck.
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Regards, Hazel