Plume de Ville
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From day to day.
7 May
Always
wonderful time. 25 °C.
Birth of
number eight this morning at 8:20.
Not easy to count!
There seems
to be nine beaks!
I have not seen the latest.
But I have not reviewed all the photos from last night.
Both
parents feed the little beaks always hungry of small green caterpillars.
Watch
VIDEO (200ko 5s)
A
chick protrudes
through the mother's feathers.
Sometimes, a
little stirring of the nest, gets a chick stuck in a strange situation.
Mom is
energetic.
Watch
VIDEO (1508ko 38s)
It is tiny,
but you can observe the long tapered legs of tits.
Shake,
shake!
With
her, all
small feeding is always followed by a mattress refurbishment. And when
we say
mattresses...
Upon hearing
one of the parent's arrivals, all small beaks open as a corolla.
Always
the
household chore.
Mom consumes, papa
exits and throw it out.
8 May
Wonderful,
wonderful day.
Great
sinkholes
and small sinkholes will be both served. You can see the age difference
between
the two chicks.
Watch
VIDEO (1749ko 52s)
A large opened
beak with a triangular orange yellow tongue, surrounded by the yellow
beak border,
encourages the feeding. They have a little down on the head.
The feeding starts at daybreak. It takes place from time to time until
all the
chicks are sated. Then the chicks can stay alone sometimes 10-12
minutes. It is
hot; the mother did not warm up her chicks the whole day.
Feeding sequence
by both parents.
They
come alternately in the nest box, meet from time to time and feed the
chick singly.
On
the
menu, a small spider. They are very difficult to catch before entering
the nest
box, because they go very fast. They did pose for a moment only when a
parent
is already there. The other waits a moment, if the first delays too
much, the other
finally enters too.
They do not meet anymore outside for a feeding.
They
change
very quickly. These 3 photos are from 6, 7 and 8 May.
On
6, they are pink and they can hardly raise their head.
They
become darker; the small duvet is denser and greyer. The heads darkens.
On 8, you begin to see the black line on the spine which will blacken
more and
more and where soon will emerge the first back feathers. The wings
feathers, backs
and tail's will be the first to break leaving bare the rest of the back.
They
are crowded
at the centre of the nest one over another, usually keeping theirs head
out in
the middle of the heap, all little beaks at the centre, opening a
corolla at
the arrival of a parent. The smaller ones often find themselves
rejected
the
periphery.
9 May
Same dream
weather.
We are
changing every day. The small wings become black, the back line
blackens.
As for the
eyes...
Big legs
and Iroquoian hairdressing.
They chirp.
Trough the open window we hear them, and they stir constantly.
An idea of the speed at which they can jig. The video is in IR, the
movement is
better rendered.
Watch
VIDEO (722ko 17s)
Of
course,
always continuous feedings. They grew up and stand upright better. The
movement
blurs the beaks in the colour camera.
Watch
VIDEO (538ko 14s
They
already make attempts to leave the nest bowl pushing brothers and
sisters.
Little
surprise!
While viewing the photos of the day, I found ten beaks! The smaller,
previously
invisible, leaved the crowd. And number ten remained hidden until now;
I had neither
seen #9. I wondered what happened to the last egg...
As
yesterday evening, butterfly is again on the menu tonight.
The time must be
favorable.
Weather is nice and warm but dry as well.
10 May
Sunshine.
It's hot.
At night, she sleeps preferably on the edge of the nest. She do not
need to
warm up her chicks all night and, surely, she sleeps better this way
than on a
mattress ten small devils.
Escapade.
May 11
Sun, sun ...
In the nest box.
The pins of the back and wings feathers.
We can see here that the feathers do not develop right away on their backs, which remains pink.
Caterpillar stuck.
Once the prey is placed in these small beaks, it
is well held. When the caterpillar is too big, the mother has
difficulties to withdraw it from the small throat. The complete
sequence
lasts five minutes: for 5 minutes, she will try to recover the
caterpillar which stifles the small chick. Then she will try to put the
prey in
another throat without success, she will eventually eat it,
herself. The
sequence here is shortened. This is not so rare that a big prey remains
stuck half-swallowed in a small throat. Look at the bill next
to the
mother who can maintain strong prey.
Watch
VIDEO (3698ko 1mn40s
These are webcam pictures, unfortunately, their definition is
far from good.
Take a little turn at My Bit of the Planet, go to
"Nestbox latest" from
1 May. You'll find extraordinary photos by David Jones, details of
small great tits, (enlarge his photos to see), as in the beak details, where
you can see why it is so difficult to remove a prey to a chick, see
the small soft "hooks" at the palate used to bring down food
into the
esophagus.
And outside the nest box?
The housekeeping from the outside.
Housekeping in flight.
Both parents now throw the bags.
And ten small digestive tubes produce! A caterpillar, a bag.
It is the queue at the entrance: Mom goes out and Dad awaits eagerly for the entry to be free...
Or not ..
So we end up nose to nose.
Or, she is forced to leave somewhat vertically. Ops! At the
top, there
is a leg that has not yet leaved, while the other is already down.
Some beautiful acrobatics on exits. , they take sharp bends.
The menu of the day.
Well, I know, when you see this... but the
dishes are very well received and if we are to believe the chicks,
delicious, yes, yes. Bon appetit.
Parents travels are
incessant. As sonn their prey is delivered and swallowed, they leave
immediately. Only the mother lingers from time to
time to re-bedding. It seems that the insects thrive with the heat,
there are many of them at this time.
12 mai
Always a wonderful time. 24 °C
The nestling is reduced to seven chicks. At the
evening of 10th, we saw
no more than 8 beaks raise when an adult arrived. They are a bit large
to remain hidden. Yesterday evening, a chick found himself outside the
nest bowl and stayed there. The mother watched and then ignored him. In
the
morning he was no longer there. Thus.
The food? They are well fed regularly.
Too
hot? It's hot in the day, 27 ° Saturday, but the nest box is in
the
shade from 11.30, (the terrace is NE), except for a few rays at 14h.
The vegetation has now grown sufficiently to cast shadows.
Both parents are caring and do numerous comings and goins.
At rest, they have a amazing trend to point all of them in the same
direction.
Admire the ear.
They make their voices hear..
The mother always makes its vigorous stir.
But now everyone go out in all sides.
Thirst! Everyone his trick.
She prefers to drink in these
acrobatic positions in the saucers of orchids! Not easy, it must pass
the bill into the slot of the suspension. I've never seen drinking in
the trough, here attended by a young sparrow, really young,
that a "moinette" leaves here since two days.
