Finally we have managed to count the number of chicks.

Nine chicks are being fed by both the male and female. Most of the chicks are now 1 week old and are growing fast. The food coming in mainly seems to be green caterpillars, spiders and the odd moth.

Picture 1: Both the male & female are feeding the chicks

The male concerned us, on one of his feeding visits, when he arrived with some pieces of peanut. The chick took the food ok, but this did not seem the right type of food for a chick to eat. Possibly there is a small shortage of caterpillars at the moment?

To try and help we are setting up a mealworm feeder, which hopefully the birds will find. We are going to make sure only certain birds, like Blue Tits can get into the feeder, keeping Magpies and Starlings out.

Here are few photos of the chicks from today. We have tried to show you there are nine in one of the photos, by using arrows (it was the best picture we could get) The chick labelled "5" is really there, a tiny bit of beak was only showing.

Picture 2: Nine chicks	Picture 3: There are nine in there (really!)

The chicks are now beginning to show signs of where their feathers are going to form and the cheaping is getting louder.

Will the chicks get through. Stay tuned . . . .

We have also seen a number of baby Sparrows being fed in our garden, so it looks like the first broad have fledged. In June 2006, a pair of Sparrows took over our unused bird box. They may possibly use box 2 this year. We will be keeping an eye on the box and will keep you all updated.

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