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We had robins nesting in an open fronted box beside our shed. We watched nest building behaviour then a parent sitting on the nest. About a week ago I saw at least one parent bird going to the nest frequently over a few days then all sign of activity stopped. After a few days I crept up to the box and there was no sign of life so I poked my phone camera in and was surprised to get this image.
What on earth are they and what could have happened?
Looks like sunflower hearts to me. These can choke chicks if parents feed it to them.
Oh my goodness! You're right - that is what they look like! I have sunflower hearts in my bird feeders but never thought that a parent bird would feed them to their chicks if they weren't suitable. In a different box where I have a camera I only ever see the parents bringing live food, insects etc.
I wonder if these birds were new to parenting. Their first nest attempt (much earlier in the year and in a nearby box that has a camera) was way too full for the size of the box and was overflowing from the opening by the time they had finished building. They never came back to actually use the nest.
I hope they try again and learn from their mistake :-(
I'm not seeing any corpses in that photo of the nest. Or abandonned eggs.
What do you think might have happened then?
Magpie or jay, or a mammal. I am totally against feeding birds during the breeding season as it encourages predators. It goes against advice and popular opinion that has been built on over the decades. A few studies have finally started confirming feeding during the breeding season doesn't boost bird populations in some/many cases. But, it would be hard to unpick decades of people being encouraged to put food out constantly. Can totally understand why people want to do it, and as I say, it is supported by 'experts' to do so.
That’s interesting and something that I hadn’t heard about before. Could you explain a bit more about how feeding the birds encourages predators?
Most predators in UK are generalists. So, some of them will be interested in the food being provided. e.g. jays love peanuts. As well as a direct encouragement for some predator species, there's also the encouragement in terms of food attracting more dense gatherings of prey species....therefore attracting attention of predators. If a small garden solely contained a blackbird or robin nest and next to no other bird life, predators would be far less likely, IMO, to even be in the garden.
Thanks for that. In my garden I only supply sunflower hearts and they are very popular with goldfinches, great tits and robins. I have rarely seen a jay and only occasional magpies. I will give it some thought but I think I will continue with the sunflower hearts for now.
I appreciate your comments though and will do some more reading on the subject.
no problem. It's interesting that you're continuing with the sunflower hearts even though they have been photographed in the robin nest. (not a criticism....it's as written...interesting).
Maybe I’m not understanding something. If the seeds choked the babies, they wouldn’t be in the nest they would be in the throats of dead chicks. There are so many there that I wonder if the male was bringing them for the female and for some reason she didn’t want to eat them. Maybe there never were any eggs or chicks? The only evidence I have is that I saw one robin making frequent visits to the box and on one occasion a roosting bird flew out when I went past with a noisy wheelie bin.