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Hello, my mother has a bird box with camera and last year she was enthralled watching the brood of 7 chicks hatch, grow and fledge.
This year there were 8 eggs, 6 hatched, and then one by one they seemed to disappear over the course of three or four days.
After the last one had apparently gone the parents didn't return, so she investigated the nest and was horrified to find that all the chicks were in there, in a tangled mass of what appeared to be hair (possibly human, certainly the pieces were all long so probably not dog/cat)
It seems that one by one the chicks had become entangled in the hair that was lining the nest, and once they were unable to come up for food, starved. I have a photo of three of these but I don't seem to be able to attach it.
Is this a common occurrence or a freak?
There seems to be a big loss of blue tits in nest boxes this year by the reports that I have read on here and other forums. It had me wondering why this is happening. Maybe there will be something on Springwatch next week about it.
Unfortunately the April weather has hit many birds hard so nest failures are all too common. As April was so cold and wet the food supplies haven't been there so chicks have unfortunately starved. Hopefully with the better weather coming in now though the birds can start again and hopefully do a bit better with the next lot! I suspect this is far more likely to be the cause than being tangled, what's more likely to have happened is when they've died they get trampled on my the other chicks and entangled in the nesting material afterwards.
Millie & Fly the Border Collies
My nestbox in Norfolk bluetits had ten eggs all hatched ok,four chicks vanished in the first few days, six grew quite big in eight days then one died they are now walking about the nest last night another died today i am left with two,they are all close to leaving the nest I am hoping the last two survive they are as big as their parents,should i get the dead out while they are still in the nest?
Hello, thank you for your insights. I think the most likely suggestion is that the food was wrong. I watched as the mother was trying to get a resonably large moth into her chicks. It was obvious that it was too large, but I presume it was all she could find given the cold weather. So yes, they probably starved or choked and then became entangled by the siblings' trampling and the mother's nest maintenance.