Still Only Five Chicks?

As far as I can tell there are still five chicks in the Great Tit nest. I would think that the remaining three eggs will not hatch now, time will tell. Both parent birds seem to be doing well finding enough small food for tiny, ever hungry beaks.

It would appear the streaming video from the nestbox is reasonably popular with over 1000 'hits' so far this month. The enlarged view on midmarshnn has had over 40 visits since that went live.

Larger Video Available

Now the quality of the streaming video from the Great Tit Nestbox has been improved thanks to Camstreams new uploading software it is possible to watch a larger picture. This is available on the bare bones blog midmarshnn, just follow the on screen instruction. I am still uploading at 320 x 240 pixels, which is what you see above here as doubling the upload size runs my processor at 100% but the quality now looks good enough for a double size video to be watched.

Great Tit Nestbox Feed Updated

I just happened to check the Camstreams site for any news about tablet apps when I saw a notice advising users to upgrade their streaming software to a new version which was released today. So it was duly downloaded, installed and running in very little time. One nice thing, they have doubled the default quality which means my computer has to work a bit harder but hopefully the video picture you see will be somewhat clearer. This update was also needed to work with the tablet apps which are being written for iOS and Android but they won't be ready for a while yet. It was only the software I use to upload the video stream which needed updating.

I may have to re-adjust the contrast / brilliance a bit which means turning off the feed a few times while I try things out as it cannot be adjusted while streaming. I am pleased to see from my experiments that the video does look much clearer with the new software.

One thing I have noticed - when viewing in Firefox the video size is limited to 100% but when I use IE 8 I can right click on the video and choose 200%  Both browsers will allow full screen video but it was too poor to bother, maybe the updated feed may look better.

Both Great Tits have been very dutiful parents today. There are now five ever hungry babies and plenty of food has been brought all through the daylight hours. Time will tell whether the final three eggs hatch.

I spent some time on and off trying to photograph the parents visiting the nest. I have a spot under a large bush about 20 feet away from the nest box. No luck. The parents were being observant and cautious. At one time while I was sat under the bush I looked up and there was the male, grub in beak, flitting from branch to branch just above my head and looking down to see what I was up to. I left them to go about their feeding runs in peace as the little ones need constant feeding while they are so small.

Now There Are Four?

Only one chick in the Great Tit nestbox first thing this morning but when Mrs GT left the nest for a short while just now I think I could see four chicks. Hope the rain soon clears away and the Sun comes out. There is plenty of insect life around when the Sun is shining and the parent birds are soon going to be very busy feeding the kids.

Empty egg shells being taken out and feeding seems to have started well with both adults bringing suitably small food.

First Great Tit Chick Hatched

When Mrs GT nipped out of the nest this morning I could see that the first of the eggs had hatched. Soon there will be lots of hungry beaks to feed.

If you just want to check on the progress in the nest box there is a bare bones blog which just has the streaming video at midmarshnn which runs the same times as here.

Grotty photo for ident - buzzard??

Heard a group of corvids kicking up a racket. Looked up to see a large light coloured bird just gliding high up across the sky. Rushed for the 50D and got a few very hurried snapshots. Should have checked the settings first. Anyway this is best (?) of a very disappointly grotty bunch.



Looking through Collins Complete Guide the only one I could find which matched the markings is the Rough-Legged Buzzard. Whether that is correct or not I would love to find out. If correct then it will be the first Buzzard I have seen and apparently a less common one to boot.

Macro on Monday - Guess What

I had a feeling last week's Guess What might fool some people but none the less Adrian and Jan each gained a virtual gold star for correctly identifying a slug while TexWisGirl should get a silver star as she hedged her bets.









This week's Guess What was a proper macro shot taken with the 350D fitted with bellows. It was also the first time I had used a Giotto tripod I bought in the Amazon new year sales. It has a central column which can be lifted right up and swivelled horizontally. This can give extra reach when the camera need to be pointing downwards.





On to this week's mystery object
Guess What:



Clue: It parachuted in. Actual size of the brown part: 4mm
No prizes, just for fun.


Great Tit Nestbox
I've just been watching the male which has arrived with a juicy grub or caterpillar. The female was out and none of the eggs has hatched yet so he spent ages trying to work out how to feed an egg. He just couldn't understand why there wasn't a mouth to feed.