Great tit camera

Transmission by Teetormaja

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On Saturday, the new nest for tits was still empty. On Sunday, a moss carpet appeared on the bottom of a tightly packed nest box.

Linnuvaatleja news, www.linnuvaatleja.ee

In the geat tit webcam nest all 8 nestlings fledged and left the nest on Saturday, July 15th. As first in the morning the oldest, 20 days old, left and as last the smallest nestling, up to 4 days younger than the others.

The departure of the great tit nestlings can be seen in the videos listed below (recorded by Urmas Lett, EENet):

Linnuvaatleja news, www.linnuvaatleja.ee

(Published in Estonian 11.07.2017)

In the great tit webcam nest the nestlings have problems with parasites. You can see that the chicks are constantly shaking themselves and every now and then some parasite (for instance louse flies) crawl across their backs. This is however nothing exceptional – in the nests of hollow nesting birds several different kinds of parasites are found such as fleas, chewing lice, Brachycera flies and mites and ticks.

Linnuvaatleja news, www.linnuvaatleja.ee
Translation Liis

Although counting the nestlings in the camera nest is not easy – either the adult is warming the young in the nest or all chicks are not visible, lying on top of each other – Looduskalender forum says that probably all 8 chicks have hatched.

Linnuvaatleja news, www.linnuvaatleja.ee

This morning [Saturday] the six largest chicks left the webcam nest. The oldest of them were 20 days old. The two smallest however, 3-4 days younger than the others, remained in the nest. What will be the fate of the chicks left behind ?

At 10.40 two chicks were still in the nest

Linnuvaatleja  news item, www.linnuvaatleja.ee

Linnuvaatleja news, www.linnuvaatleja.ee

In the great tit nest with webcam the first chicks were hatched on June 25th and on July 12th [date of the Estonian text], they were 17 days old. Usually great tit nestlings leave the nest in their third week of life, in periods with abundant food already at 15 days

Linnuvaatleja news, www.linnuvaatleja.ee

Translation Liis

On Sunday afternoon (June 25^th) the hatching of the chicks could be watched in the nest in the tree trunk. It is surprising that the chicks hatched just then, since the great tit laid the last egg, the eighth one, in the nest only on June 16th. Normal calculations predicted that the chicks would not begin to hatch until June 28th (read here: When does a great tit actually start incubating? ). http://www.looduskalender.ee/n/en/node/1446

Screencap from webcam Biker, LK forum
Translation Liis

On June 12th the five eggs were still covered with down when the female left the nest, but on the next day the eggs were already not covered

Great tit       Rasvatihane           Parus major

The cool spring this year made the tits start breeding later but of the reasons the ornithologists will write in more detail.

Transmission courtesy of Tele2 and EENet
Introduction Margus Ots
Translation Liis