Have the blue tits gone? (1 Viewer)

We have been delighted to have a family of blue tits nesting in one of my boxes in the garden.
I was lucky enough to see mum feeding her young at the box entrance and at close range a couple of weeks ago.
However, all seems quiet on the nesting box front now. I’ve seen no activity during the last week.
Gutted I missed the young fly the nest.
Question is, will any return during the summer? The reason for the question is that the box is in a poor state of repair and needs fixing. Could I carry out the repairs now?
The easiest thing would be to replace the box, but the tits opted for the old box over a newer box about a yard away from its location, hence the preference to repair and reuse.

Cheers

Hi,

Molliesdad said:

Question is, will any return during the summer? The reason for the question is that the box is in a poor state of repair and needs fixing. Could I carry out the repairs now?

Click to expand...

According to "Methodenstandards zur Erfassung der Brutvögel in Deutschland", which is a bit of a bird calendar, only a small proportion of all Blue Tits breed twice in the same year.

In fact, it notes the second breeds start in June, so if yours were only recently feeding young, that might plausibly have been their second brood.

Breeding period is 13 to 15 days, nestling period is 18 to 21 days.

(All quoted data applies to Germany ... I presume it's not going to be dramatically different for Britain.)

Regards,

Henning

Thank you for your reply.
I guess it will be safe to remove the box and give it a good repair job! :t: