Prepare to be completely charmed in less than 20 seconds as an adorable Eurasian blue tit earnestly looks around at a clean new nesting box. What luck! Tap on those walls and make sure they’re good quality.
When the bird returns on day two with nesting material, it’s the start of a sweet montage that continues until day 46 when the first egg is laid and the parents settle in.
From Live Nest Box Camera 2021 – Loughborough, UK:
The British Trust for Ornithology has a BlueTit Diary page, which sets out their nesting and breeding habits, states that usually blue tits spend between one and two weeks building their nest. Some even build their nest in only a few days. Our female took between 6 and 7 weeks! Such a perfectionist. It might go some way to explain why this nest was so deep!
The longer, more slowly-paced video below, First Egg Hatching to Chicks Fledging – 21 days in 21 mins, observes the blue tit parents as they raise their babies. Of the five hungry mouths that they begin with, only two fledglings leave the nest in the end.
Observations: One caterpillar makes for a pretty big meal in the first week. Keep an eye out for wing exercise on day 16 and a potential predator on day 20. And a parent keeps the nest clean from baby bird poop at 14m54s.
We love nests and animal cams. Watch these next:
• Hummingbird hatchlings in their nest with mother Rosie
• How do cliff swallows build their mud pellet nests?
• Annie and Grinnell, UC Berkeley’s Peregrine Falcon Parents
• Mandarin ducklings dive from unbelievably high heights
• Four fox pups in an underground ‘magic tree den’
Bonus: Why aren’t bird nests covered in bird poop?
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