Life outside of the eggshells has begun...

The eggs have hatched!

This morning I peeked at the video and noticed the female leaving. Shortly afterwards the male came in with a tiny tiny worm in its beak.

How did I figure out it was the male? Because he behaved like all males when the eggs have just hatched and they have to interact with the hatchlings for the first time. It is really amazing and amusing. The behavioral change of the males over the first few days after hatching is truly fascinating.

Generally, early after hatching, the female spends most of the day warming the small hatchlings (they have no way of controlling their temperature and keeping warm), so when the male comes in, he gives her the food he has brought in for the hatchlings and she then proceeds to feed them.

So, when, for the first time the male comes in and there is no female, the male is taken aback and looks like he does not quite know what to do. After a few seconds of hesitation and puzzlement, he approaches the nest and feeds the hatchlings himself.

Gradually the male gets used to interacting with the hatchlings himself: calls to them to let them know that he is there with food and up pop the big heads with beaks wide open.

And after he has done this a couple of times he is then reluctant to give the food to the female and wants to feed the hatchlings himself. This is what I have observed in the last couple of years.

And it fascinates me every time.

Super Partes Interventionism

I’m still trying to figure out if “super partes interventionism” is an oxymoron or not.

Where does it come from? Well, I invented it. Not in absolute terms, but I just came up with it for myself.

I arrived home last night to find three cats in my garden. A gray one, an orange one, and the black one. The black one. He is one special fellow. To me he is anyway. It is a pleasure to be greeted by him. The instant he sees me, he stops all activity, and with his tail straight up in the air, he runs towards me meowing quite incessantly, to then throw himself at my feet belly in the air so that I may stoop down and pet him. And as I gently caress him, he closes his eyes and remains quite still, closes his paws and looks like he could fall asleep any instant. What fascinates me is that I don’t feed him.

I used to have a black cat when I was a child, and she was very much the same. She was at my grandmother’s place and whenever I used to visit and she heard my name being called, she would suddenly appear from out of nowhere and rush into the house so that child and cat could indulge in a captivated and silent exchange of affection.

Anyway, I obviously have a dilemma: cat love on the one side - bird protection on the other. And the two just don’t mix. Uhm.

The dilemma is not acute right this moment. The female Blue Tit is still brooding, so there is not much visible activity going on. Inside the box she sits there, turns the eyes at regular intervals, changes position. But it is all very silent. It all passes very much unobserved even for the most attentive of cat eyes.

The question is what happens when things start “living”.

I will need to find a solution. Protect the nest somehow from the outside.