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Hi we have had a successful nest for the past 4 years, with a few fatalities which I understand is normal , but yesterday we could see from the webcam that from a batch of 11 eggs and 10 days old and going extremely well , they started to reduced in numbers to 9 then dramatically during the day went down to 5 then 4 they died babies being removed from the nest and this morning when mum woke up she tried to feed them with a juicy grub no movement they had all died.
its so sad
it was extremely hot yesterday 22/23c would this be the culprit? Has this happened to anyone else?
Sorry to read that. Heat can be an issue. However, 22c shouldn't be an issue. It could be if the box is in full sun for long period of the day, so hotter than that. I note the box has been successful prev. Where is the box located? More likely lack of food, and poss the death of an adult.
Its so sad, I googled why this would happen and found your post, yesterday was very hot, but our bird box went quiet at 6am yesterday before the heat. The kids loved watching them come and go and when we heard the chick's on Monday they were overjoyed. But not sure how many were in there, but no activity yesterday or this morning. Heartbreaking
Sorry about that. It'll likely be the same as above. Lack of suitable food and/or loss of an adult. The good weather is, on paper, good for feeding parent birds....but cats seem to now be spending endless amounts of time outside and in everyone's gardens.
I have just revisited my clips and yesterday morning I think it was just one adult feeding. Before hand they were a tag team constantly in and out. They had been feeding lots of green grubs so not sure if it was that. We are south west facing and as I say always been successful in the past 5 fledged last year.
It’s so sad after all their hard work
SW facing isn't ideal, esp if it's got no cover. e.g. if it's on a fence or wall. Lack of food is still more likely (esp if only one parent).
Yes we had wondered if would cause a problem but for the past 4 years all ok . We even have a robin just underneath in a tea pot for the past 2 years. I watched constant grubs going in so maybe one adult and the heat possibly? either way it very sad as they worked so hard together for their chicks.
thank you for your help x
No problem. I don't remember heat being an issue for the previous 4 Mays.....certainly a lot of heavy rain last year, so they did to breed successfully in 2023. With climate change, will be interesting to see if nestboxes fail more regularly in UK in the coming decades.
Hi Anne, so sorry to hear about your baby blue tits. I had a very similar experience, albeit this was the first year I had put a nest box up so have nothing to compare against. 9 eggs were laid and hatched on April 30th and May 1st respectively. Slowly but surely the numbers started dwindling with only 2 chicks left by May 14th. One of the chicks looked relatively lively so I was hopeful, however, to my dismay, the remaining two chicks passed away the morning of May 15th. Very much struggling to understand why none of the chicks made as while this was my first time putting a nest box up, I did my research and made sure to put it in a good position away from direct sunlight/strong winds etc. Anyway, very sorry that you had to witness this as I can very much relate to how heartbreaking it is.
Perhaps there just weren't enough grubs to go around - there must be some areas where caterpillars are not as abundant as they have been in previous years. Certainly the parents wouldmookbusy and be bringing grubs in, but if they weren't't bringing enough because of.a shortage. and if that was compounded by the loss of one parent...