Blackbird nest disaster!
Wed 25th April 2012
Last Friday morning I spotted our blackbird’s nest lying on the lawn under the dense laurel that it had been built in – disaster! Although we have never actually seen the nest before we have been watching Mrs Blackbird for weeks to’ing and fro’ing with materials, and then more recently food, and although only 30-40% of blackbirds’ nests produce fledged young we were hoping that we might have seen some babies by now.
Having examined the fallen nest it seems clean – no sign of feathers, droppings or shell fragments – so maybe a false start, or a decoy, and there is another nearby? It seems very heavy – lots of mud used in its construction – so maybe it fell out under its own weight rather than being predated? It is very different from last year’s chaffinch nest!
We saw some curious behaviour from adult birds – hard to say if they were the owners, but watched a female robbing build material from the fallen nest, before being driven off by a male who also started plucking at it – wasn’t sure if this was a futile attempt at defence and repair, (although male blackbirds don’t normally do nest building), or a recycling of materials for the next attempt!
According to RSPB a blackbird’s breeding itinerary starts late February or early March and is something like:
- 2 weeks to build the nest
- 3-5 eggs laid which take 13-14 days to hatch
- nestlings take a further 13-14 days to fledge
- fledgings able to fly within a week
- independent 3 weeks after fledging
Our Mrs B took more than a fortnight over building, so allowing her an exta week or so means that her brood should have fledged around 15th of April, and I found the empty nest 4 days later. So maybe all is well? Except there has been no sign of the young…