Garden Wildlife (2)

Well, it has been a drama filled spring in the wildlife garden, so much so that it’s hard to know where to start. We began with typical benign developments of blackbirds, robins and blue tits nest building. The blackbird in a hedge, robin in the garage, and the blue tits in a nest box.

The first twist to the tale was after a while of nest building by the blue tits a pair of great tits cast their gaze towards the same box. It culminated in quite the scrap between the pair of blue tits and the pair of great tits. Unsurprisingly the larger great tits won out and usurped their smaller cousins.

The male blackbird, easily identified as the same individual by a white patch on his rump, took to regularly having fisticuffs with the male on the neighbouring territory. They would leap up and while fluttering crash into each other. Once the chicks hatched the male and female began diligently feeding. This was when the male spied an opportunity. Our pond soon became prime hunting territory. What has been my pride and joy of a burgeoning population of smooth newts were now under attack. He stalks the margins, standing still at the edge akin to a heron, and then plunges in full body and emerges with a very displeased amphibian in his beak. This is then followed by a disturbingly long time of whacking the newt around until it is in small enough pieces to eat. He then feeds them to the chicks. Fortunately I think there are enough newts in the garden to avoid their total eradication.

The blackbird's favourite newt-hunting spot.

The robin nest was relatively drama free, safe on its shelf in the garage and accessed via an open window. The parents were attentive and regularly took food in.

The robin's nest was successful. Here it is post fledging.

The female great tit was now sitting on the nest. The male would regularly bring food to the nearby apple tree and utter his call that sounded just like ‘GREAT TIT GREAT TIT’. The female would immediately pop out, take the food, and then have a stretch and fly around before returning to sitting. Occasionally she would remain in and he would have to deliver the food to her in the box.

They started feeding the chicks on Tuesday 28^th April, initially bringing in minuscule caterpillars. Regular feeding ensued and everything was going as you may expect. After 4 or 5 days the chicks were audible and seemingly getting louder by the hour.

On Wednesday 6^th May, just over a week after hatching, a wren started taking an interest in the nest box. From my viewing angle I could see the wren looking at the box from all around, but I couldn’t see the nest hole. I then moved so that I could see the hole and was amazed and confused to see him go in the box. What was he doing? My initial thoughts were perhaps he is looking for spiders or other tasty morsels in there but then surely the great tits would have hoovered any up. Interfering with the nest or trying to remove any chicks seemed almost impossible due to his diminutive size. The answer came shortly later as I saw him bring food into the nest, then leave with an empty beak. He was feeding chicks!

Prior to this there had been zero wren activity around the nest, and the box is quite a small one aimed at species such as blue tits. The possibility of there being both a great tit nest, and a wren nest in the same box seemed highly unlikely (although the situation is, to be fair, highly unlikely!). So the most likely conclusion is that the wren is feeding the great tit chicks in addition to the great tits feeding them!

The scene of the nest box drama. 

This has been most bizarre to watch as two species tend to the same nest box, bringing in food items and removing the faecal sacs. The wren is very keen to tend to the nest but is hesitant to enter when there is an adult great tit already in the box. I made a note of everything that happened around the box for one hour and in that time the great tits fed the chicks 15 times, and the wren fed them 10 times. A few times the wren brought food over and put his head in/ out, in/out the hole but wouldn’t go in fully as there was an adult great tit already in the box.

The action continued for over a week. I will detail this in a following post. 

- Hugh Baggaley