Sunday 8 May 2011

Great Tits - Mum Has Breakfast in Bed

Another egg last night - now we have five, there could be anything up to eight by the time she has finished laying. She hasn't finished yet as she has not started incubating them. Mum is obviously getting her mate trained as he was spotted bringing a tasty morsel for her breakfast.



She still leaves the nest from time to time which gives me an opportunity to see how many eggs there are. All five can be seen in this still clip.

Great Tit - 5 Eggs
I had a read up about nesting and incubation with the tit family. The eggs will not start to develop unless she is sitting on them day and night. Also when the time is right she loses some of her chest feathers which allows her body heat to be transferred to the eggs.

6 comments:

  1. I really look forward to these.....just brilliant.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I never cease to be impressed and intrigued by Nature John. It fills me with awe that they just know instinctively how to behave, even down to the male bird knowing that he must feed mum... just incredible. I didn't know about the chest feathers shedding, I love that sort of detail!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very true Jan. I am always amazed by the way short lived creatures know how to look after themselves, especially when you think how long it takes a human to become independent.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Any comment, or correction to any information or identification I get wrong, is most welcome. John

Related Posts with Thumbnails