From today, you will notice some blurring in any photos I attach to my diary entries, as I did not want to show the dead chick, and so have blurred it out.
The male Great Tit has been very good and continued to provide food for the growing chicks. Today they are certainly looking more like young Great Tits and their cheeping sound has started to sound more like a Great Tit call. How quickly they have grown and developed. It will not be long before they think of leaving the box.
The five chicks have grown so big that the female Great Tit has been making the nest cup (if you can call it that now) even bigger. When she build the nest, she added a lot of soft material which has now been pushed up to the side of the nest. Now the chicks seem to keep hiding under it and popping up for food when it comes in. There really is five chicks in there somewhere 🙂
When the chicks have been left alone for a while and are hungry, they keep begging for food and calling. I would not want to guess how many spiders, insects, caterpillars etc both the male and female Great Tit have brought into the box.
I am pleased to say that none of the chicks have taken a venture out of the nest cup recently and the female is still roosting with the chicks. I suspect she will soon stop roosting with them, which means fledging can not be too far away.
More in my next diary update
