Nest cam update

Richards 6 titmice are ready to fledge at 21 days.

We watched them on his TV monitor today.

The most rambunctious of the clutch kept flying up to the hole to peek out, and everytime it dropped back into the nest its siblings went into a frenzy of begging and wing flapping-- obviously mistaking it for a parent.

My screech owl box was appropriated by a pair of northern flickers about 2 weeks ago.

The seventh egg appeared yesterday between 9 and 10 AM.

Today one of the eggs disappeared. I presume it was damaged and the hen disposed of it.

I expect she'll get serious incubation very soon.

Corpse in the nest box

Neighbor Richard's titmice are nesting again and he and his Mrs have been viewing the family life daily on their TV monitor. (They're using the same Harbor Freight set up I was using for the screech owl).

I've been remiss in maintaining my own titmouse box.

It's been hanging by a thread of weathered bungie cord since last fall, swaying in the breeze.

Believing it was unsuitable and abandoned, I took it down for repair on May Day.

Pried it open in the garage, and to my surprise found 6 warm eggs.

I got another surprise when I put my glasses on.

The mound of fluff next to the entrance was a mummified titmouse.

Makes you wonder.

Did it die last winter or early this year?

Did the surviving member of the pair take another mate? Or are they a new couple?

The only thing we know for sure is that a dead conspecific didn't deter the new pair from getting on with nesting.

I repaired the box (without the use of hammer), and as the resident pair chirped nearby I secrured it to the live oak in the potting shed.

[May 4 update -- all is well -- the titmice are brooding.]

 

Richard's bird box monitor

It's one thing to have a pair of oak titmice move into your bird box.

It's another thing to sit in your TV room and witness the events going on inside the box.

A couple years ago I gave neighbor Richard a bird box, and this spring he equipped it with a cheap security cam wired it to an old black and white TV monitor.

He's been bearing witness to the timeless but fleeting drama of avian growth and development.

Today I stopped by to see for myself.

One of the chicks was flapping and climbing over its siblings, and I observed that "fledging is just around the corner".

"Then I've got to catch that stray cat soon."

"You betcha". Fledglings are delectable morsels to cats, but one hardly makes a meal.

Richard says that there's a frenzy of feeding just before sundown.

Mom and dad come and go, and the chicks gobble moths, poop and grow.

As a distraction to the boob tube, my neighbor prefers the bird box to commercials.

Sneaky jays and nervous titmice

It's sneaky-jay time of year. 

Cavity nesters are busy feeding their young and sneaky jays are on the lookout.

The ecological theatre is in the potting shed where the oak titmice have nestlings in the box. 

When I hear titmice sphishing, I walk to the shed and look up into the live oaks, and there they are dancing about in a frenzy of alarm.

Seeing the jay is a different matter.   

Whatever the jay -- Steller or scrub -- it tries to be cryptic. It hardly moves. In fact, it almost looks sleepy. 

But I have seen this little drama play out many times, and I know the jay is searching for helpless fledglings.   

Soon the fledglings will be out and about, and for a few days they'll be highly vulnerable. 

That's when sneaky jay will make its move as it did last year. 

I couldn't see the fledglings because they were motionless. 

But the jay pounced when a fledgling moved, and it flew off a little heavily with the squealing prey.  

Today I was a titmouse defender. I mean, I didn't build the nest box as a feeding station for jays.

"Get the hell out of here," I protest as I toss a stick up towards it. 

Under the usual  circumstances the jay would be gone, but now sneaky jay only flies up a branch. 

It doesn't regard me as a threat, and it has a lot more time than I do.