Back in early March 2022, I installed a nest box with a wireless bird box camera in the garden. After a couple of days a pair of Blue Tits started checking out the box, closely followed by a pair of Great Tits.
In the end the blue tits claimed the box and over the next 55 days they built a nest, laid 8 eggs, hatched and fed the chicks until finally 6 of the chicks fledged successfully.
It was fascinating to see them doing all of this in real-time thanks to the nest box livestream coming from the wi-fi enabled bird box camera. The video below shows highlights of the entire 55 day process as well as a couple of later videos of the chicks from my bird feeder camera.
Blue Tit Nest Box Timings
Out of curiosity, I recorded the schedule the blue tits used throughout the nesting process. This is largely weather/food source dependant but they seem to fit with the expected averages.
8th March 2022 – I installed the next box.
14th March 2022 – Blue Tits visit.
26th March 2022 – Blue Tits second visit.
26th March 2022 – Great Tits visit.
2nd April 2022 – Great Tits second visit.
12th April 2022 – Third Blue Tit visit.
13th April 2022 – Blue Tits start nest building. The nest building took 14 days.
26th April 2022 – The female Blue Tit spends her first night in the nest box.
27th April 2022 – The first egg is laid.
4th May 2022 – The eight & final egg is laid and incubation begins.
18th May 2022 – The first six eggs hatch having been incubated for 14 days.
19th May 2022 – The final two eggs hatch.
6th June 2022 – The chicks fledge the nest 19 days after hatching. The two chicks that hatched late, sadly, didn’t survive.
All in all it was a wonderful experience to watch these birds. The sheer effort they have to put in just to survive is astonishing, as is the amount of journeys they make to build the nest and to catch enough caterpillars for the chicks to eat. Each blue tit chick can eat 100 green caterpillars per day.
It is a very rewarding thing to watch and it’s also very easy to install a wireless nest box camera.
Blue Tit Nest Box Photos
These are some photos taken from the camera video feed.
You may also enjoy the monthly videos I post from my array of bird feeder cameras.
