Ragged Blue Tits!

[diggleken]

I know these types of numbers have been crunched before, but when its your babies, its different, more personal.........
The pair of Blue's in the second nest box make so many trips, I did some counting - taking a blue tit day as broadly 12 hours, they visit with food for the chicks every minute or so even when wet and the fledging time will be about 3 to 4 weeks or so (say 25 days) - 12x60x25 = 18,000 trips, two of them = 36,000 food visits x 2 insects/spiders per trip = 72,000 food items.
If there are about 10 chicks (not unusual), thats 7,200 per chick etc etc etc. . . very busy parents indeed!
No wonder they look ragged!
Cheers
Ken

[Ollie]

Some mind boggling statistics. I'm sure we would look much worse if we had that kind of work load.

[Elizabeth B]

My Collins Guide to nests, eggs and nestlings says that the young stay in the nest for 15-23 days, though over our eight years of watching we've found that the most usual time here has been 19 days.

[diggleken]

Still a lot though!
The New Atlas talks about three weeks, but it has been longer in my experience - and as you say Elizabeth, it can be shorter.
I suspect it depends on food availability, location, weather and temperature - and size of brood to an extent - they always seem to leave close ish together, so once any posssible runt has perished the rest are probably fed fairly evenly to facilitate that.
But thats just an educated guess!
Cheers
Ken

[jaykay]

I'm exhausted just reading the statistics, phew!!

[feathered-friend]

I noticed how ragged and wet some of the blue tits and great tits are here also.

It has been raining alot this week, yet other great tits look just perfect. I notice one of the parents from our great tit family in the bird box shelters when the rain is heavy.

Both parents feed the chicks constantly however there is only 4 in the box, I guess a bigger brood must take its toll!

[Jenny W]

Originally Posted by diggleken

Still a lot though!
The New Atlas talks about three weeks, but it has been longer in my experience - and as you say Elizabeth, it can be shorter.
I suspect it depends on food availability, location, weather and temperature - and size of brood to an extent - they always seem to leave close ish together, so once any posssible runt has perished the rest are probably fed fairly evenly to facilitate that.
But thats just an educated guess!
Cheers
Ken

Does indeed - it can also depend on the age and experience of the parent birds.