20th May 2000

Here you can see the baby birds aged just two days old. One of the babies took a couple of days longer than the others to hatch and was visibly smaller, as you can see from this photo.

It didn't take them long to learn the sound of their parents returning to the nest to feed them! In fact any noise close to the nest seems to set them off.. such as lifting the lid on the bird box!

25th May 2000

Now, aged just 7 days they are starting to develop the characteristic colouring of blue-tits, and are getting more boisterous! Their eyes are not yet fully developed, so they rely on sound and do not seem frightened at the lid being lifted on the box.

29th May 2000

Aged 11 days, their eyes are open and they are responding to changes in light. They seem a bit nervous at the bird box lid being opened but soon jump up and chirp noisily when mum or dad return with food, every few minutes!

4th June 2000

At 17 days old, most of the chicks decided it was time to leave the nest. We were around to watch them take their maiden flights (and take some photographs too!)

Five chicks left the nest today, here you can see one just about to propel itself from the nest, to the apple tree at the bottom of the garden.

We watched the parents coaxing their young out of the nest. They would arrive at the bird box with food, go in and out of the nest a couple of times and then fly off to the apple tree and wait for the curiosity (or hunger!) of the babies to get the better of them.

The two that were left stayed the night in the nest, and flew the following morning (one of them pictured here).

Even after all the chicks had left the nest the parents still returned the next day, seemingly to check that all the babies had left the nest, and that none had returned.