Quick Nest Box Update

Gail and I made the second visit to our Pied Flycatcher boxes in Bowland and sadly no new birds had come in since last week. In fact even sadder was the loss of a pair at the egg stage. When I checked this particular box the clutch of seven eggs were cold, and last week they were warm. It is likely that something has happened to the female and the box has been abandoned. I will check it again next week, just in case though.

We had the first of our clutches hatching today and there was a single brood of Nuthatches, three Great Tits and a single brood of Blue Tits that had hatched. All the Pied Flycatchers were on eggs, which is to be expected.

 Nuthatches

 Great Tits

The only other thing of note was a singing Redstart at the far end of the woodland. A pair used to nest in one of my boxes there, but no longer, so I'll definitely put a few more boxes up in this area during the winter in preparation for next year in the hope that a pair of Redstarts will use one of our boxes again.

The forecast is looking good for the coming week, so I've got bird surveys scheduled for every morning; three in Cumbria, one in Lancashire and one in Cheshire. My earliest alarm call this week will be 3:30 a.m. and latest 4:45 a.m. Ouch!