Many great tits, pigeons migrating

This video from France says about itself:

A couple of Wood Pigeons made a nest in my flower box in Paris, trashing my geraniums. When I noticed the nest, I let them be. One egg was laid and then another. I named the parents Patience and Constant, because they were! They took turns sitting on the eggs 24/7 until the first egg hatched on Bastille Day 2008, exactly 18 days after it was laid. After several more days it was clear that the second egg had died. I named the surviving baby Hope.

After the hatching, Patience and Constant continued to sit on the nest, keeping the squab warm, and feeding it with pigeon “milk” which they manufactured from their own food. This pigeon baby food is regurgitated from the throat into the squabs beak.

At 12 days old, Hope was left alone for the first time and I found her at 4:00 am, drenched in a torrential downpour. I made a bed for her and brought her in for a few hours, putting her back in the nest before her parents returned! The next night it rained again and I put up an umbrella to keep her dry.

In the week that followed she began to stretch her wings, balance on the edge of the window box, and look outward to the world beyond. At 20 days old, Hope flew for the first time. She came back to rest in the nest in the flower box on three occasions. After that she stayed out with her flock. Today she is healthy, plump, beautiful, and free.

The Dutch ornithologists of SOVON report record numbers of woodpigeons migrating from Scandinavia through the eastern Netherlands to south-western Europe this year. In the month October alone, 2,7 million pigeons were counted, a record number.

SOVON also reports record numbers of great tits coming to the Netherlands from northern and eastern Europe this year. Nearly 80,000 this year. Bird migration researchers think these were probably mainly not from Scandinavia, but from Baltic countries. Probably, the birds migrate because of a lack this year of beech nuts and other food in eastern Europe.

November 2012. A new strain of avian pox is taking its toll on garden birds in Britain, according to new research. Scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), University of Oxford, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and RSPB report on the impact avian pox is having on great tit populations: here.

Effects of human disturbance on nest placement of the Woodpigeon in Morocco: here.

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