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Gret tit nest

 

 

This year three or four hundred thousand pairs of great tits will nest in Estonia, and a great majority even twice. We can find a full egg clutch in a great tit nest from early May until mid-July. The tiny great tit females lay and incubate seven up to twelve white red-patterned eggs – it is an almost unbelievable capacity. The female who alone incubates is fed during that time by the male.

 

The incubation period lasts two weeks and the chicks, with sparse downy feathering, are hatched in the course of 2-3 days. So, many great tits already have chicks in the nest. During the first few days they are fed with insects and spiders chewed to a half-liquid mash by the adults. The eyes of the chicks open around the eighth day and the female is even more diligent in feeding than the male (as you might remember from winter the male’s black band on the belly is wider, the female’s narrower and with more blurred edges but such identification is not necessarily always true). A couple of days before they leave the nest loud twittering is heard from the chicks. They leave the nest already partly capable of flying and the departure takes place already on the 20th day of their life (or, depending on weather and other circumstances a few days earlier or later).

 

Great tit chick after having flown out from the nest

 

As long as the adults feed the chicks outside the nest we hear their already familiar twitter. Often the male is engaged in feeding the chicks since the females may start laying a second clutch already before the chicks from the first clutch have left the nest.