blue tit wing flapping

[mrbright]

hi am fairly new to bird watching, only starting when i had my first nesting birds (blue tits) in my little council estate garden, some 7-8 weeks ago, i am either lucky or unlucky to have had the time to view these newcomers constantly, several times i have reported on their different behavour patterns and got several different responses as to why they flap their wings rapidly, apparently the male does this when trying to coax suitors into his newly found nestbox, the female does this when demanding food from her partner during nest building etc, i have now noticed that when they both arrive at the nest box with grubs for their little ones at the same time, they both flap their wings wildly, after watching these birds extremely carefully for the past few months, for up to ten hours a day i have to say , that in my opinion the only reason they do it, is because they are so very impatient, they are so quick living that they can stand no time for wasting when new life is imminent.
i do not have a internal webcam in their nest box , luckily many of you do, especially elizabeths , who has given me great insight into their behaviour inside the box, but im only an amateur, so look forward to any responses on this very strange behaviour in these beautiful little birds.

[Poppleford Ginny]

Well, our bluetits have had a very mixed period since they started laying. Between 16-14 April 9 eggs were laid, of which 8 hatched on 30 May. Between then and 20 May we only had 4 fledglings remaining, then on Friday 21 May two more, very undersized babies, died. We are now left with two, both look good, lots of wing flapping and jockeying for position going on, but one is stronger and gets more food than the other. It is now 23 days since they hatched which is beginning to seem a day or two longer than usual before they fly - my book tells me it is usually up to 22 days - so Iwonder if the exceptionally poor weather and latterly prolonged dry weather has meant a scarcity of natural food; what do others think? it seems a very high attrition rate ..... As this is the first year we have been able to view with a nestcam we have nothing to go by. I hope all you others, particularly newbies, are having a better survival rate

[Elizabeth B]

We've usually found that it's 18 or 19 days from hatching to fledging - but the BTO suggests 18-21 days: BTO BirdFacts - Blue Tit

On the Overview page of our Diary, there's a table showing the dates of significant events in our boxes since 2001