Wildlife with Hugh

In my previous post I wrote about a wren that had taken up delivering food to a nest box occupied by great tits. This dynamic continued for the duration of the nest’s active period. It became increasingly apparent that we were down to a single great tit parent. The male was nowhere to be seen. The female great tit was still regularly bringing food to the box, and the wren once or twice sang revealing it to be a he. Therefore the box was being tended to by a female great tit and a male wren! To recap, the chicks of the great tits hatched on 28 th April and on 6 th May the wren starting bringing food in and taking away the faecal sacs. For a full 9 days the wren tended to the nest, and throughout this period the wren wrestled with a continuing issue; he wanted to bring food in, but sometimes the female great tit was already in the nest! At 9.1 grams for a wren versus 16 grams for a great tit, he was significantly outsized. Plus the tit’s sharp claws and relatively strong be