Friday 10 June 2011

Friday at the Flicks - Great Tit Babies, Young Hedgehog, Baby Blue Tit

The baby Great Tits have continued to grow rapidly and it gets very crowded in the nest box, especially when both parents arrive at the same time.The youngsters keep preening and exercising their wings and every now and then one will have a look out of the entrance hole. You can just see a head appear at the entrance after a bit of wing flapping. They should start to fledge in the near future.



An early visitor each night is a young Hedgehog. Too big to be from this year's brood so I would imaging it was born last year. It doesn't matter how well I mix up the dried mealworms, crushed unsalted peanuts and peanut nibbles, the mealworms always disappear first.



I don't know whether a local pair of Blue Tits only raised one baby or only one survived but this one was being fed by both parents. I watched for a while and didn't spot any other babies at the time. It may look as though I speeded up the film but the parent really was that fast when trying to break up a sunflower heart so it would be small enough for a young beak to manage.



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife wherever you are.

While I am in a video mood - today's Giveaway Of The Day is what looks like a great program for adding watermarks to video clips. It is only available, fully working and free of charge, today from the GOTD site. If you see Video Watermark Pro shown at the bottom right of this page just click on it to go to the GOTD site.

4 comments:

  1. I'm amazed at how quickly those Great Tits are developing John. Fledging any day now I'd guess.

    That little Blue Tit looks so vulnerable sitting there.
    For a moment I thought that Sparrow was going to feed it lol

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  2. Lovely flicks John :) The babies are looking really smart, I shouldn't think it will be long now!

    So glad you are emphasising crushed as well as unsalted peanuts, I have been concerned several times lately to see whole peanuts on blogs which as you know can be so dangerous when baby birds are being fed.

    Yes, the Blue Tit video did look speeded up! No wonder the Blue Tits always look so tired by the end of the breeding season. I had to laugh when the Sparrow arrived and dwarfed baby... then the huge Starling arrived :)

    Have a lovely weekend John.

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  3. They seemed to grow so fast Keith. All fledged now. The Sparrow did seem to gibe the baby Blue Tit a quizzical look.

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  4. Thank you Jan. New, and final, video of the nest box now available as they all fledged today.

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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

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