Blue tit disaster

Thanks. You are right. No-one else has replied. We did do a couple of things.

As per your last point, our neighbour suggested putting the box near the tree so we put it on a table at the base, This enabled the parents to find it again, clever things, and they started going in with food, after a bit of uncertainty. However we could see that the cats and local magpies had also found it. It was not only fragile but also a bit broken so leaving it there was not an option.

So a friend with fewer thumbs than I have (I have ten) came round and put up a simple shelf at the same place and secured the box there, with as little working on the box itself, just one screw to hold it together. Again the clever parents found it and so they kept visiting for the rest of that day and the next.

But on the second day following, they were nowhere to be seen and tapping the box did not produce the same chick chirruping we had heard a lot of previously. We have not looked inside so we don't know if they are inside, dead, or fledged. My guess would be the former as they were pretty small. I would also guess that if one died, the others would soon follow.

One thing we did notice when they were visiting was that one parent was bold and direct but the other was much more reticent, fluttering its wings and hopping from branch to branch before eventually going in. Why was this? We don't know.

Anyway, sad in the end, but we did try.