My baby Blue Tits are dying!

Oldsailor - how very sad to hear that you have lost your 2 remaining chicks - just when you got your hopes up for them.  My 4 chicks have flown the nest today. They picked a lovely day to fly off! One minute they were all in the nest box and then next there was just 1 remaining. I got to witness the last one leave the nest box and I waited to see if Mum & Dad would be there to tend to them. After a few minutes the adults came back & had a look in the nest box & when they saw that the chicks weren't there they started to call for them. They flew down to where they were so hopefully all will be well from now on especially now that they are in the BIG wide world.  I won't be letting my dogs out in the garden today just incase they find them.

While I've been looking out for the fledged BT's I have also noticed that we must have a Robin's nest in a bush near by so I've now moved on to Robin patrol - would have loved to have had a camera in that nest area.

I will leave it a week or so & clean out the nest box in readiness for next year.  By the way do you check your cam nest box over winter - we noticed that a Blue Tit sleeps in there at night & has done this for the last few years. Clever thing - keeping out tof the cold!

Hi Oldsailor,

So sorry to hear u lost your chicks, its a terrible feeling when they"ve not grown up to be the beautiful birds we know they are. I'm still feeling gutted!!! Hopefully next year will be successful. At the moment we are watching a baby starling been fed by its mother, its hilarious as the baby never stops crying for food and the poor mum cannot keep up!!Now we have a pair of Green Finches who are eating very slowly and taking no notice of the racket next to them. Its nice to see some success at a time when we lost our little ones. Hope next year you have a happy little blue tit family, kind regards yosa

One of my brothers had 6 blue tit chicks hatch but all of them died in the box, another brother has 8 blue tit eggs that have not hatched but the mother has sat on them for 31 days!! Very sad. Anyone know when she will finally give up and abandon the nest? On a brighter note I have great tit's nesting in my camera prepared bird box, so hopefully I can have a posititve result.

Make sure your food source is not too big for the babies, blue tits can sometimes get whole peanuts if the feeder is faulty, good luck. I am watching ten eggs at the moment.

artist

Have noticed some very bizarre behaviour this morning. As I said earlier the adults appeared to abandon the sole survivor and it died. I thought at one stage that both adults may have been taken by predators, but lo and behold they are both back this morning and treating the dead chick as if it were alive. One is sitting on it and performing all the little shuffling rituals and routines while the other is bringing food to the nest almost in a frenzy. Just don't know what to make of it.

Hi all,

This is my first post.

We also have a Box Watch nest can you please advise.

We had eight eggs hatch on Saturday, great excitement.  Yesterday only four were still alive. The Daddy is not there since yesterday afternoon, so she is trying to feed them herself. This afternoon there are only two left. I think the other two chocked on bread she brought in this morning.

She has just tried to stuff in what looked like a big spider, which we can see did not fit into their tiny mouths. I know I shouldn't interfere but I knocked on the side of the box and she ate it herself.

She has dragged the other two dead ones to the side of the box, should I open it and remove them?

If I dig up some worms and leave them near the box would that help?

Thank you

Brigid

Dublin

Hi,

Thank you for the speedy reply.

I know you're right . I did dig up some worms and leave them near, but so far she is ignoring them. I have also put up some more fat balls and she is feeding from them.

It is so sad for everyone this year.

A wonderful website thank you.

Regards

Brigid

Hi,

No but I will try and source some tomorrow.

Thanks for your help.

Brigid

We're having the same bluetit problem, 9 eggs, just one chick left alive :(

I have put out dried mealworm (soaked in hot water for 15 mins, then left to cool first) but although great tits are taking them, the bluetits only seem to eat them themselves, but don't take any to the nestbox. The only possibility is that they regurgitate them from their crop.

Having put up a birdbox last year and seen a pair of Bluetits successfully raise a brood I was

pleased when a pair started building again this year. They seemed to take weeks in and out

of the box building the nest (I don't have a camera in the box). Eventually I heard little chirps

but did notice for the past week or so there seemed to be only one bird coming to the nest.

Yesterday there was one chick shouting loudly and it kept appearing at the entrance, no sign

of a parent coming to feed. I had to go out and when I returned in the evening all was quiet,

then the next door neighbour came round with a very small chick he had found in his garden.

Having watched all afternoon and not seeing it been fed he was worried the cats would get

it. I told him about the ones in my box and decided to have a look in the box. The nest was upside down and there was 4 dead chicks, two that looked only a few days old and the other

2 bigger with feathers but 1 bigger than the other as if they had died at different times.

Sadly the other one was dead this morning.

I don't know if something happened to the parents or they were not good at parenting or

as someone said the weather was against them.

I just feel very sad about it, all the hard work building a really good nest.

I have plenty of feeders which the parents seemed to be taking advantage of.