Ok so every year we get bluetits nesting either in the nest box or somewhere in our roof, we have an extension on the house with a flat roof and this was the first time they have nested in the flat roof, they nested a few inches from the right corner underneath the white plastic I guess it was underneath and up somewhere inside as I couldn’t see anything from standing directly under it. So a week ago I heard baby birds while Standing at my back door, I sat on my decking and looked around and then I seen the mother bluetit I assume it was Going in and out of the white plastic, this went on all week everything seemed fine. We had a couple of days of very heavy rain. I didn’t come out during those days but last night it had dried up and we came outside for a bit when we went to go back in the house we noticed a baby bird next to the back door on the decking, it wasn’t there when we came out an hour earlier I picked it up. It was dead. The poor thing was still warm and flexible. I placed it in a box with tissue as we were going to bury it. We just assumed at this point a baby bird had fell out of the nest somehow , it was very underdeveloped. I don’t want to upload a picture but it was not ready to leave the nest and I assume around a week old. We then went back outside as we were concerned as we had noticed we hadn’t seen the mother going in and out the whole time we’ve been out here, which was very unusual , so we sat and watched nothing happened and I could not hear the baby birds . In the past week if I made a noise of whistling or clapping my hands or any kind of noise the baby birds would cry so we tried a few different noises we could not hear them at all. We even tried banging the window next to where the nest is as that is our bathroom, there was no noise at all from the baby birds. My partner said perhaps the mother is in there with them and they are all snug that would be unusual as it was still daylight and she would usually be in and out at this time. I accepted that but I was very concerned that Something had happened. this morning my partner started work at 5 am. He said he would sit outside on the decking with his coffee before work and watch, he texted me to say nothing had happened, He didn’t see the mother bird and he didn’t hear any baby birds crying. I’ve been out two hours watching the roof nothing has happened. It is silent and the mother is nowhere to be seen. I don’t believe any other birds could get in there it’s a tiny gap I wonder about rats could rats be in that part of the roof? Could they get in there? It is not connected anywhere to or loft which is on the other bit of the house. It doesn’t make sense What has happened. I know around the corner from where the bird nest we do have a bat nest . We’ve had that a few years now they’ve never caused problems before with other Bluetits nesting here, every time a bluetit has nested they’ve seen it through with their babies and we’ve watched them fly the nest which has been a wonderful experience every single time I was excited to see it again. It’s almost like they have just vanished overnight, but they were not ready to fly the nest as this baby had been alive up until that point so they were all at that stage of development and there is no way they were ready to fly. The baby that had fell out of the nest was unharmed. It just seemed to have fallen out of the nest and I imagine the fall from the top of the house onto the hard decking was what had killed it but all the other babies, why aren’t they crying and where is the mother ? What could have happened ?
Could be a number of reasons. If the dying bird was found almost directly underneath the nest entrance, it could well ave been removed from the nest, either by a parent or an invading bird looking to take over the nest. Sparrows can do that for example. Nest could have failed due to lack of food, or loss of a parent, both of which enter the nest to feed.