Situated in a suburban back garden in Liverpool, 2 Schwegler Woodcrete nestboxes have been placed facing North/North-East. In April 2005 Blue Tits occupied the nestboxes, 3 chicks were successfully fledged. This year nestcams have been installed expectantly!

This website follows the progress of a pair of Blue Tits as they build their nest, lay eggs and rear their young.

BlueTit Insights        

As winter draws to a close, and on warm fine days in February signs of territorial  activity such as increased male singing becomes more apparent. During the winter Blue Tits loosely flock together roaming the area, feeding as they go; As spring approaches the flocks break up and pairing starts.

A pair will feed together, hunting the still almost bare twigs for food. The male seeing off any other suitors  posturing by raising his bright blue crown feathers, lightly spreading his wings and fanning his tail. Often when they are together, the female will beg food from her mate, fluffing her feathers and lowering her head with outstretched wings, this courtship behaviour can extend right through until their are young in the nest. This behaviour has an added bonus as the most successful females are those in best condition at the outset of breeding, so extra feeding increases the female weight and thus produces larger and more productive clutches.

Blue tits breed wherever there are areas of trees with suitable nest holes ,preferring small holes or narrow cracks about 1 - 15 metres from the ground. However they are renowned for frequently choosing extraordinary nest sites, including bottles, tin cans, pipes, letterboxes, car dashboards and post boxes!   Nest-boxes in gardens are readily used, especially if there is a shortage of natural sites in an area. Both males and females search for nest holes; many females roost during the winter nights in what will become the nest site. If the male finds somewhere suitable, he displays by fluttering his wings and calling to his mate; he will then go into the hole, calling the female and hoping she will follow and approve the site. She builds the nest alone, collecting moss, dead grass, dry twigs, dead leaves to fill the bottom of the nest hole; wing fanning movements (see pictures below) are performed in order to flatten the nesting material...also observed before nesting material brought in- practice session!!  After 2 or 3 days of building in earnest, the layer of moss will be up to 2 inches deep, the female will begin to forms a cup-shaped structure roughly 1.5 inches or more in diameter. She finally lines it with soft feathers, finer grasses  or  hair. (Great & Coal Tits use fur, wool, horse and a cattle hair to line their nests)

The timing of the egg-laying and the size of the clutch is usually  related to the abundance of green moth caterpillars. A clutch of 7 - 13 eggs is laid from mid-April to early May and are laid at the rate of one a day. Clutch size depends on the age of the parents, the health of the female and habitat they live in; birds in woodland tend to lay larger clutches The eggs are white with a variable quantity of tiny chestnut speckles sometimes denser at the big end. Approximately 15 by 12mm and weighing around 0.5 of a gram. 

Incubation begins only when the clutch is almost complete - the female usually covers the eggs with some nest lining if she has to leave them for a while. As her clutch nears completion, a brood patch begins to develop on the breast and belly of the female, this bare area is richly supplied with blood vessels  which provides warmth to incubate the eggs. 

Incubation lasts up to 14 days, regularly changing her position on the eggs, turning them at frequent intervals to ensure equal egg  warming. Whilst the female is sitting on the eggs, the male defends the area around the nest site from other blue tits, he also brings food to his mate. 

Once the eggs begin to hatch the female removes the fragments of shell dropping it far from the nest. The male know becomes more involved as the young need regular feeding. The young are fed by both parents, when the chicks are small the food collected is equally small  aphids, tiny caterpillars spiders etc, as they grow , so bigger food items arrive especially fat juicy caterpillars. the parents can make up to a hundred visits or more daily, at each visit the chicks droppings -faecal sac is  removed from the nest and dropped some distance form the nest. 

The brood stay in the nest for up to eighteen days ensuring they are sufficiently  mature and grown enough in the wing to fledge. if the weather is poor, they will delay their departure fro up to 3 days. Once fledged the family stay together for a couple of weeks whilst the young develop their wings and flying ability, during this time the fledging depend heavily on their  parents for food. .At this time the young birds can be easily recognised from their parents , where the adult is white the youngster greyish yellow where the adult is bright blue crown back and tail the youngster grey blue. This plumage is replaced in the coming weeks during the moulting period.

Blue Tits sometimes rear two broods a year, but this almost never happens in Britain. Maybe if a predator takes the first clutch a replacement  will be laid.

A series of  pictures taken from inside the nestbox.

Sunday 5th March

Meet Titch, but is our roosting bird male or female. The trouble is that it difficult to check this out as the two sexes look so alike.  Behaviour is a much clearer guide to a Blue Tit's sex than  any differences in plumage.  However, at this stage, when looking at the birds inside the nest, there aren't any of the usual behavioural clues.

However, at the nesting  stage, the behavioural clues are there - like nesting wriggles/wing fanning, only done by the female. Or the other classic female activity, of pecking at the floor. Mating rituals such as are one bird feeding the other/a begging female is another sign.  

It's not unusual for birds to peck at the floor, and some people have reported quite extensive 'floor stripping' in the past. Why do they do it? Well it is probably for the same reason that they peck at the hole. The general consensus is that they are testing the wood to make sure it isn't rotten, and will therefore serve them well as a nesting site.

2nd April

Typical April day blustery showers but mild.

We're nesting

At last here has been some progress in the bird box.  A nest started to be made yesterday and more bedding was added today.  Most of the activity occurs in the mornings. Materials brought in are grasses, straw and moss from my soon to be decimated hanging baskets. It would appear that the eventual nest cup will be towards the back of the box.

15th April 

I ripped open an old feather pillow and spread feathers around the shrubs in the garden to encourage nest building. This has proved popular as you can see in the above picture. The local House Sparrows have also favoured this bedding taking huge mouthfuls away, unfortunately not to the house sparrow terrace I also have installed, but to their nests in the old privets we our still fortunate to have in the area as garden boundaries, and a few houses still have unblocked eaves.

28th April

 The nest appears to be complete. The last few days have been quite frantic.  She has been bringing in  lots of material, lots of wriggling and moving bedding around, the nest appears very deep and cosy. I must say there has not been much sign of Parus, conspicuous by his absence.