It’s a busy time in the nest boxes at Flatford Wildlife Garden, with the cameras revealing all the comings and goings of the blue tits to our visitors. With 7 eggs laid in one and 9 in the other, we’re sure to see lots of activity! Blue tits have one of the largest clutch sizes of all birds and can lay up to 16 eggs, though most lay between 8 and 12. Once the penultimate egg has been laid, the female starts to incubate the eggs, having plucked feathers from her abdomen to create a warming ‘brood patch’. She stays here for about two weeks, only leaving the nest occasionally if her mate is not bringing her enough food.
Excitingly, the first four blue tit eggs at the garden hatched on the morning of April 28th. Now the hard work really begins for the parents. Each chick needs around 100 caterpillars per day, ideally those of the oak moth. That adds up to a huge number of caterpillars for the entire brood, keeping both parents busy from dawn til dusk. The male and female also have to remove the chicks’ faecal sacs from the nest to keep it clean and tidy. These are neat packages of mucous membrane which make it easier for the parents to transport waste from the nest. So with all this feeding and tidying, we can look forward to a huge amount of action around the nest boxes over the next few weeks!
Blue tit with caterpillars: RSPB images
It’s not too late to put up a nest box in your garden for the blue tits. More information on where to place a nest box, and even how to build your own, can be found here.
The garden is now open every day from 10:30-4:30, so why not pop along and have a look at the NestCams for yourself as the eggs continue to hatch. Or you can take a look at the garden's Facebook page (search RSPB Flatford Wildlife Garden), where there are regular updates on the blue tit nests and other activity in the garden.