Lost and Found

Some bad news to start with. I’m sorry to say that my first nest of the year, and first ever Mistle thrush nest, has been predated.

As I approached the nest site last weekend I was concerned by the quietness. There was no sign of the adults and I was able to climb the tree without any alarming or dive-bombing. Perhaps they were both out getting food for their happy and hungry chicks? Unfortunately not.

No doubt they were had by Corvids – maybe the Crow that was hassling them on my last visit.

When you first start nesting, it’s hard not to get downhearted by predation. You spend so much time trying to find a nest, and then re-visit it every week, I certainly get quite attached to the parents and hope for their success. But predation is so common – roughly half of the nests that I find this year will be predated. That may seem like a lot, but you have to bare in mind that the nests that I find are the ones that are findable. I know where there are loads of nests that I just can’t get to, and no doubt they will have a much higher rate of success.

Here’s a beautiful Long-tailed tit nest.

Admittedly it’s a bit messy at this unfinished stage, but they are quite striking once complete. Lichen and moss weaved together with hair and spider’s web (giving it elasticity for when the 7 or so chicks inside it grow) and lined with literally thousands of feathers. They commonly spend up to three weeks building, my father and I once had a pair who appeared to be lining with feathers for two whole weeks!

Here’s the nest now, predated with it’s contents strewn through the bush.

But that’s life. The pair of Long-tailed tits have already started building a replacement nest, and it’s in a much better spot. And I’ll be out tomorrow looking for where the Mistle thrush pair have moved on to.

Anyway, since losing the Mistle thrush nest I have found many new and exciting nests!

On my way to work each day I had noticed a pair of Moorhen on this picturesque pond on Blackheath Common.

So I took my wellies to work with me and on the way home carefully waded through the reeds until I was startled by the noisy flushing of a Moorhen. I peered into the tussock of reeds from where the bird had shot and was delighted by what I saw.

Ten eggs! Count them, ten!

Moorhen clutch sizes usually range from 5 – 8 eggs. Less commonly their nests can contain as many as 14 eggs, but larger clutches are likely to be the result of egg dumping from another female. I have not seen another female on this pond, but that’s not to say that one hasn’t been sneaking in and leaving an egg behind. My dad reckons he can see that a few of the eggs have a slightly different patterning and maybe they’ve come from a different parent, though he did add that he may have just been looking at it for too long as it was his desktop background. He could well be right though, and I am putting it to the NRS forum. What do you think?

As well as the Moorhen nest, I’ve found this beautiful Greenfinch nest in a prickly gorse bush.

And my best friend James and I stumbled across this Dunnock’s nest in the alley behind the back of our flat.

Very pretty eggs!

I’ve also found so many Blackbird’s nest that I’m almost losing track!