We currently have bluetits nesting in our nest box, yesterday she laid 5-6 eggs and all seemed well. When we turned the camera on at 6.30 am this morning she was not there but still eggs in the nest. An hour later when we looked the eggs had disappeared. The nest had not been disturbed atall. She then returned to the box around 8.30 am and put some more nesting material in and at approx 2pm laid 6 more eggs. We are really concerned that the same thing will happen again. The nest box is on a fence post between the shed and a fence covered in honeysuckle. I am reluctant to trim the honeysuckle back as it's giving cover to the nest box. My husband has nailed some spiky material to the post in the hopes that it will stop anything climbing the post. Can anyone suggest which predator would steal eggs and leave no sign. I'm not sure what we can do to stop it happening again.
-
Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.
Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Bluetit nest box predation (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter MCB54
- Start date
Kits
Picture Picker
Welcome to Birdforum. I hope you enjoy your visits.
You may be confused over the egg laying as blue tits lay one egg a day.
You may find this link interesting.
www.birdforum.net
You may be confused over the egg laying as blue tits lay one egg a day.
You may find this link interesting.
Eurasian Blue Tit - BirdForum Opus
www.birdforum.net
YuShan
Well-known member
This is confusing. They only lay 1 egg per day, so if you suddenly see 6 eggs then that suggests that the eggs had simply been out of view. Or were the eggs laid over a 6 day period?
Regarding possible predation, how big is the nest box opening? If you make it 25mm, only blue tits can enter it.
Thankyou for the link. However, that is what I thought that they only laid one egg a day and we were surprised to see so many yesterday.Now I'm wondering if she had simply covered the eggs up this morning (although to be fair it didn't look like she had from the camera view) perhaps she just laid one egg this afternoon and simply in the process uncovered the others. I do hope so. The nest box opening is only small around 25mm so hopefully we are worrying unnecessarily.Welcome to Birdforum. I hope you enjoy your visits.
You may be confused over the egg laying as blue tits lay one egg a day.
You may find this link interesting.
Eurasian Blue Tit - BirdForum Opus
PYRTLE
Old Berkshire Boy
I dont think that nailing anything to the post was a good idea - disturbance could cause the nest to be abandoned. A possible culprit could have been a grass snake, but unlikely in an urban environment. Just likely the eggs have been covered during the cooler temperatures.
Puzzling.
Puzzling.
Yes a snake crossed our minds as well as our neighbours have a deck in their garden on the other side of our fence.I know once my sister had a snake living under her decking. Hopefully we haven't disturbed the nest and caused them to abandon it, my husband did make sure that they were not around before he did it. .
Hello and welcome to the forum, enjoy and all the best.
Thankyou, yes the members have been helpful already although I must confess that next year I won't put the camera in the box it's just too stressful
