I had a long post in December last year detailing the real life soap opera that Red-breasted Flycatchers entertained us with in 2017. 2018 was a bit less racy but there was still drama.
In 2017 we had record numbers of Red-breasted Flycatchers
around Oslo including the second recorded successful breeding record. In the
regular Sørkedalen locality we had two singing males but no sign of a female
and in Maridalen we also had two males plus a female (who at various times was
paired with both males) and 3 young that successfully fledged along with four
young Pied Flycatchers that believed their dad was a Red-breast… I was
therefore very excited to see what 2018 would bring. How many Red-breasted
Flycatchers would return, and would there be some Pied Flycatchers that sang
like a Red-breasted Flycatcher?
I have already alluded to the fact that Red-breasted
Flycatchers did indeed return and last years old male returned to Maridalen on 8
May which made him the first bird recorded in Norway in 2018 and must be
considered an early date regardless of year. The black spot in the left eye
ring confirmed his identity.
He sang in vain for a long time and checks of Sørkedalen
revealed no birds there so it looked like 2018 was going to be a shadow of 2017
but finally on 24 May a female turned up (she was definitely not around on 22
May based on the males behaviour but could have arrived 23 May when I did not
visit). She was a very well marked bird (old?) with an orange wash on her
throat which meant I initially thought she was a 2cy male. I was able to watch
their courtship which included the male taking her to potential nest sites
which she tested out. Things developed very quickly and the female soon
disappeared and the male stopped singing all of which indicated she was on eggs
but it was not until 5 June that I located the nest.
The nest was in exactly the same type of place as last year
– at the base of a piece of bark that was falling off a tree. This looks such a
precarious site but was successful last year and perhaps does suggest that it
is the same female? I followed the nest as regularly as I could and it was
lower than last years so easier to see but the female was so deep in the nest
that all that could be seen was her tail or beak tip. It wasn’t until 15 June
that the behaviour of the birds changed and it seemed clear that young must
have hatched. I put the camera on the extended tripod and holding this over the
nest was able to get a picture showing three just hatched young and three eggs!
With an assumed incubation time of 14 days then the last
egg would have been laid on 1 June and with 6 eggs (and one egg laid per day)
then the first egg would have been laid on 27 May. With the female arriving on
24 May (possibly 23rd) then they must surely have started nest building
already that day if they were to be able to lay eggs just 3 days later (BWP
gives nest building as 3 days).
On 16 June both parents were coming regularly with food to
the nest (although I did not try to find out how many young had finally hatched).
A visit on 21 June revealed disaster though. The bark and nest had fallen down
and were lying on the floor. This had probably happened a few days before and
there were no remains of eggs shells or young. Why did this happen? We had some
very strong winds that could have blown it down but a predator such as a Red Squirrel
of Great Spotted Woodpecker could easily have caused this damage.
This was of course not the outcome we wanted but nest
failure is part of the game and research in Poland showed that only 51% of
clutches resulted in at least one fledged youngster and of the failures 82%
were down to predation.
The male was heard singing in the area again on 22 June and
then on 24 June I saw the pair engaged in courtship behaviour so a second
breeding attempt seemed to be on the cards despite the late date but we had no
more observations after 28 June so don’t know what happened.
Although I did not observe or hear any Pied Flycatchers
that I suspected were the ones raised by the RB Fly last year there was a
female Pied Fly that raised young alone (as far as I could see) and I did see
the male Rb Fly around her nest box. I did not see any interaction between the
two birds but he did react aggressively to a male Pied Fly in the area so he
may have been up to his old tricks.
Some interesting papers on Red-breasted Flycatchers in Poland:
 |
| the same old male as last year, individually identified by the black spot in the bottom of the right eyering |
 |
| large caterpillars were definitely the prefered food |
 |
| although smaller insects were also eaten |
 |
| the nest site |
 |
| the female. She was unusually well marked on her throat and upper breast which is presumably a sign of old age |
 |
| the male coming with a rather large larvae on 15 June the days the young hatched |
 |
| male and female on the nest |
 |
| the nest from above |
 |
| three very newly hatched young and three eggs |
No comments:
Post a Comment