Tag: Great Tit

Cosmic Photo Challenge: Inside

David M14 Comments

Having spent a lot of my spare time digitising my slide archives over the winter the Cosmic Photo Challenge: Inside was rather well timed.

I now have digital copies of most of the nestbox interiors documenting the nesting cycle of various hole nesting species. So here’s the inside of three different nestboxes and three different species using them.

 

Cosmic Photo Challenge: Inside

An adult Eurasian Blue Tit feeding young. The adult has an unidentified insect in its bill.

 

Cosmic Photo Challenge: Inside

A male House Sparrow feeding young.

 

Cosmic Photo Challenge: Inside

Juvenile Great Tits begging for food having just heard an adult land at the nestbox entrance hole. Occasionally the adults will take a break from the constant feeding to feed themselves and do some feather maintenance. As a result, all the young are hungry when feeding resumes.

 

Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Bathrooms/Outhouses

David M2 Comments

This is my contribution to Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Bathrooms/Outhouses.

As is sometimes the case, I took a sideways look at the challenge and thought about bathrooms and outhouses in the natural world.

To a bird, any water is a bathroom, here a male House Sparrow is bathing in a garden pond in Nantwich, Cheshire, England. Bathing is an important part of feather maintenance.

Monochrome House Sparrow bathing.

An adult Great Tit removing a fecal sac from a youngster in Hatherton, Cheshire, England. The young produce fecal sacs to allow the adults to remove the droppings and keep the nest clean.

Great Tit removing fecal sac.

Feeding Recently Hatched Young.

David M7 Comments

One from the archives taken in Cheshire in the late 1980s.

Having documented the complete nesting cycle of a pair of Eurasian Blue Tits in 1987 I went on to photograph other species in different nestboxes over the next couple of years.

Here an adult Great Tit (Parus major) is about to feed some recently hatched young with a small yellow green caterpillar. While it looks as if the bird is looking at the camera it was just the timing of the shot. It was dark inside the nestbox, I was releasing the shutter a second or two after hearing an adult land at the entrance hole.

Feeding Recently Hatched Young.