City nature

Well it just gets curiouser and curiouser. The female blackbird returned to the nest this morning. She diddn't stay, just plumped up the bedding and went off a few minutes later.

The thing is, if she had been violently attacked on the nest by other birds or rodents (the location is absolutely squirrel proof though) I am certain she would have abandoned this nest and possibly even the territory - this has already happened to an unlucky pair of blackbirds who got raided by squirrels in next doors garden. They left and never came back. So when I saw that all the eggs were gone, I assumed the worst, that we would never see her again. Wether the nest was attacked or robbed stealthily while she was on a rest break, I feel sure that a robbed nest would be too much for any bird.

So was it robbery, or were the eggs perhaps bad and removed by the parent birds themselves? Did the eggs hatch, producing sickly chicks that died soon after? And will the female return to lay yet more eggs?

Ten days offline, but so much has happened to the birds in my windowbox in that time, and I have been left guessing more than once. Friday 11th saw a mini tragedy on the very day I was hopeful that the eggs may begin to hatch. I had my customary peep at the nest when the female was on her rest break, and instead of five eggs, I saw three, and not a chick in sight. I hadn't been working next to the window that day but our flat is tiny and I felt sure that had the nest been attacked I would have heard the alarm calls. Either the eggs had hatched, the nestlings died immediately afterwards and were removed by the parents, or something had stealthily crept up and grabbed an eggy breakfast while the female was on a break.

This did not bode well at all, and as I was going away for the weekend, I could not help but fret. Sure enough upon our return on Sunday evening, there was no mother bird, and no eggs in the nest. This grim sight was made worse by having no idea what might have happened, but we had to assume that whatever had stolen the eggs first time around must have come back later for more.

It's Sunday, and the female has been incubating her eggs for a full week now. It seems to me to be an extraordinarily tedious job, and I'm wondering if she feels the same. A few days ago I noticed something new; the female, sitting on her nest, making the same plaintive "seep, seep" call that I had attributed to the male bird a few days before. She's obviously communicating something to her mate - but what? I crane my head to to see if there is something out there that could be bothering her. Nothing. Or at least, nothing that I can imagine would bother her - who knows what she's making of the world right now anyway? Then I get another idea, a more credible one. Is she calling her mate because she needs a rest from sitting, needs to stretch her wings, take in a worm or two, scratch her itchy belly? Could she actually be bored? At any rate the male doesn't come. I listen to her seeping pathetically for a good hour before he turns up, cautiously approaching the windowbox from it's most overgrown side. And she's off! As soon as he is in her field of vision she launches herself into the air without a backward glance, leaving him in charge. He perches awkwardly on the side of the nest, bows low to the eggs inside and peers at them uncertainly. He seems quite at a loss. He is handsome; I drink in his beauty as he straightens up and spots me. He is far more nervous than the female - he hasn't spent long hours in my company as she has, and I know I make him feel uncomfortable. He stands as stiffly as a sentry; I am reminded of the guards who stand along Whitehall in their bearskin hats and scarlet tunics, flamboyant, still as statues and utterly ridiculous. It becomes clear that he does not share his mates infinite patience and after only five minutes he flies up to perch on next doors roof, becomes unhappy with the view from up there, and drops back to the nest. After some impatient shuffling about on the nests rim, he's had enough and flies away, leaving the eggs unguarded. Luckily the female returns not long after, settles herself comfortably back onto the eggs and sits dreaming, her short rest break over.

May eve, and the revelation of what I had already suspected - a fifth egg to complete the clutch - saw me wondering a big wonder; how on earth could there possibly be enough room in the nest to accommodate that many nestlings? It seemed absolutely rammed full with just three last time, and I am keen to see how such a large brood gets on. Will nature get nasty this time; will I see chicks starve, fall out of the nest, become sickly and die? I am considering getting a stock of meal-worms to leave out in a dish in the back garden. I am softhearted - no impassive recording of nature for me. I have become involved, invested, call it what you will. It is irresistable.

The above image was shot through the net curtain and approximates what I will be getting to see every day now while incubation takes place. Actually, the view I have is a damn site clearer than this would lead you to beleive, but you can make out the star of the show if you squint.

I haven't been working in the kitchen today so I can't provide a blow by blow account of the days activities. What I can tell you though is that full time incubation has begun, and the female has been sitting tight on the nest all day! Is there a fifth egg? I probably won't find out for sure until she goes for a rest break and I have a chance to peek at the nest.

This development also means that there probably won't be any more pictures until the chicks have hatched. Why? Because I wouldn't dare take a picture of the hen bird while she is incubating. She is very used to me now, and is actually far more relaxed about my presence than she was last time around, but we have a net curtain on that window, and if I were to move it while she is sitting in order to take a photo I am afraid it would be too much for her. Why do we have to have the curtain? Well, our neighbours kitchen window looks directly onto ours from a distance of a few feet, so for the sake of privacy the curtain has always been there and Mrs blackbird is very used to it now. Perhaps it is the very reason she chose to nest where she has, at it is rather harder for her to see me than it is for me to see her.

The good news however is that the chicks will not be quite so bothered about the curtain if it moves while they are in the nest. The first lot of chicks were very accustomed to being looked at and while I wouldn't go as far as to say that they enjoyed modelling for me, they were ok to photograph as long as the fuss involved was minimal. Needless to say, I have no intention of doing anything to cause adult or baby birds any distress, so from now on any photo opportunities will not be taken lightly.

The female was on the nest by 10.30 today - she has a proper routine it appears! She spent a lot of time on the nest, although still not as much as she did once her clutch of eggs was completed last time, so we'll see if she has any surprises for us tomorrow. She was served lunch again by the male - this time a beak full of worms, and this time he seems to have got the hang of things. There was a fair bit of drama today, and I got to see how the pair interact when danger is near. Often I heared the thin "seep" call coming from the male, who was perched close by but somewhere hidden, as he warned his mate to sit tight. At least, that's what I infer from it, as whenever he made that call she would shuffle down further into the nest in an attempt to become invisible. What was he seeing? I would go out into the garden to try and see the potential threat, but usually with the "seep" call, I could not. Mid afternoon there was a commotion of a different magnitude when a magpie attempted to raid a neighbouring blackbird nest in a tree three gardens down from ours. All the blackbirds of the neighbourhood had come out in support of their neighbour and were frantically mobbing the magpie, screeching, pecking and giving the familiar rattling, cackling alarm call that sounds to me as if they are shreiking "OMG OMG OMFG!!!!!!" Our male was presumably taking part, and the female was going through agonies of curiosity. Every so often she would creep very slightly forward in the nest in an attempt to see what was going on, but the screeches of her mate would see her sliding back into the nest and hiding in it as far down as she could go. Obviously he couldn't come to her in case he led the magpie to the nest, but once the danger had passed and the magpie was driven away he took up his position in the dead ash tree and began his territorial song. As soon as he did this, the female relaxed visibly, fluffed herself out and began fidgeting contentedly. It's fascinating to see how much the male can communicate to her.

I am beginning to get used to her ways. She's there by 10.30, and again I am already hard at work; in fact I'm concentrating on what I'm doing so hard that although I pretty much know that she is only in the nest for one reason and that is to lay another egg, I completely miss seeing her egg labour. In my defence, it has to be said that she seems to be getting as laid back about the whole process as I am, and perhaps it just wasn't as dramatic this time around. While she is still on the nest, the male bird comes to give her some food. He doesn't like me much; never did. He tuts in dissaproval when he spots me, but VERY quietly, almost under his breath. I couldn't quite make out what he had brought for lunch - it looked like a big lump of bread, and I can only hope it was something more nutritious. Mabe one of the neighbours has a fat bar out for the birds, but it looked a bit dry to be fat. At any rate there was a lot of inexpert fumbling as he tried to give the offering to his mate, and at one point he simply dropped it on her head. Something I noticed with the first brood was that the parents actually had to learn how to feed their young. I guess they were first timers, because when the chicks hatched they simply waved the food above the frantic babies beaks, occasionally dropping food onto them in a completely random way. Once the stronger of the chicks had grabbed it's first meal they seemed to get the hang of what they were supposed to do and food was rammed firmly into whichever open beak seemed hungriest. How odd that the male seems to have forgotten what to do! she stayed quite a bit longer this time, and even returned mid afternoon for another hour, which made me suspicious but when I looked there were three eggs rather than four.

Well strictly speaking, the hen bird had returned briefly to her nest once or twice, very fleetingly, in the previous week. I'd noticed her doing some very energetic rummaging inside the nest cup, head down, tugging furiously, then settling herself into the cup and rounding it out again with vigorous pummelings of her breast. At the time I was unconvinced that this heralded a return, although looking back I was just thinking that way to avoid dissapointment. Her spring cleaning was so vigorous that she turned the entire nest by about 45 degrees.

26 April:- I come into the kitchen at about 10.00am and get ready to set up my work for the day when I notice the hen bird is sitting on her nest. I'd checked the nest the previous night so I knew it was empty; when she left the nest about 1 1/2 hours later, it was a thrill to see the pretty sky blue egg she had laid, and even lovelier to realise that she may have been in the process of laying it as I sat working only a couple of feet away. She knows I am there, and as long as I stay on my side of the glass I suspect she doesn't mind.

27 April:- She's a bit later today; she arrives at around 11.30am, and I am already hard at work. I keep a close eye on her from the moment she arrives, and am rewarded with seeing her go through her egg labour. Within about 10 minutes or so, (during which she fidgets and turns upon the nest) she sinks further into the nest, her breathing becomes laboured and it is evident that she is hard at work too. I'm unsure that I saw the precise moment an egg was laid, but she certainly relaxed noticably at one point, and a minute or so later went head first into the nest to see what she could see. She sat tight on the nest for about another hour and a half, then flew off. It tickled my spine when I peered into the nest cup and saw a second egg of that gorgeous blue, patterned at either end with maroon speckles. I have learned that blackbirds only begin full time incubation of their eggs once the full clutch has been laid; it allows all the eggs to develop at the same rate. However it seems crazy to me that such precious things should be left pretty much out in the open for however many days it takes before the whole clutch is laid. I can't help feeling protective of them, and when I see a crow perched on our neighbours roof, I open the window suddenly to startle it before it can get an eyefull of eggy bounty.

The idea for this blog has been swimming about in my head for a year or more. I love nature yet live in a city - surely that would mean that my chances to enjoy the natural world are slim? Not at all! My pursuit of urban nature has become as fascinating and compelling as any observations that I could make in more "natural" surroundings. The British Isles has very little wild countryside anyway - most non urban land is heavily farmed and thus not necessarily as nature friendly as you would think. But the city, and specifically my city - London - has many a haven for wild fauna and flora. So what made me start writing?

One day, late in March, I returned to our flat after a weekend away to notice something rummaging around in our kitchen window-box. A glance into the box revealed a nest, and a little quiet observation revealed a hen blackbird, putting the finishing touches to it. It was a few more days before she took up permanent residence, and I had the incredible good fortune of being able to watch as she incubated the four eggs, as three of those four eggs hatched and then as the chicks grew to large and fuzzy fledglinghood. Seeing them fledge was a thrilling and anxious experience, and I have no idea if they survived longer than a few days once they left the nest. I recorded the experience very briefly here in my personal journal, but at the time I wished I had taken more detailed notes of what exactly was going on. Well, I was to get my chance. A couple of days ago the female blackbird returned to her nest and began to lay again. This blog will attempt to follow her and her chicks in the days to come; I'm going to start retrospectively from the day she first returned to lay until I catch up with myself. I hope you enjoy reading about it as much as I love watching the whole fantastic progress, and I hope that our second clutch of eggs will be even more successful than the first. Meanwhile, check out these pictures of the first brood to give you an idea of what is to come...