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5th visit: The eggs hatched!

10th of May 2020

I went to visit the Song thrush nest last Thursday and I have found that the eggs hatched into 4 beautiful chicks. They probably hatched 1 or 2 days earlier, as they were already big. They were pink with a few fluffy feathers and indeed very vulnerable. I decided that I will visit the nest site every day, trying to minimize as much as possible the disturbance. In this way, I can document the development of the little ones until they will fly away from the nest. During this period the mother and father will feed them on various food. Song thrushes are ‘omnivorous’, which means they eat fruit, berries and invertebrates, in particular earthworms and snails.

Watch carefully at the photos. What can you see?

Check the photo on day 3: one of the chicks is sleeping with a small earthworm coming out from its beak. It must have fallen asleep before swallowing it! As you notice, the skin of their body gets darker day by day and on day 2 the base of the wing feathers start to form under the skin and on day 4 they are already starting to come out from the skin.

More discoveries!

Last Thursday, after my visit to the Song thrush nest, I went for a nature walk in a new area of the forest. Suddenly, while walking a bird flew very fast just in front of me. It looked that it came out from the ground. I stopped and searched around me for clues and…surprised I saw a little hole in front of my foot. I looked and inside there was hidden a beautiful nest made of moss, fine grass and hair. On it there were laying 7 tiny eggs! These were of a creamy color with reddish-brown colored spots around and mostly concentrated at the bottom of the eggs. What a beautiful surprise! But of which bird species was the nest? I didn’t manage to identify it, I stayed in the area for 15 minutes but no bird was showing up, so I left and went away to not disturb too much.

I went back again the day after, I really wanted to find out the bird species! I took my binoculars out and hide myself far away from the nest. The mysterious bird was a Robin.

This Sunday, I went again to discover new areas of the forest and I found a fantastic nest of a Song thrush. It had 5 blue eggs laying inside.