News: May 2003

On this evening's live broadcast of the BBC prgramme Wild in your Garden, presenter Bill Oddie stated that the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) suspected that this year would be a bad one for blue tits.

Nest monitoring has shown the BTO that blue tit clutches this year are significantly lower than would normally be expected. A possible reason for this, put forward by the BTO, is that the lower clutch sizes are a natural response by the birds to the drought-like conditions of March and April. Furthermore, the wet weather we have had during May is also likely to lower the fledging rate. This is bad news for blue tits because they are a species which, typically, only raise a single brood every year, so there wont be a chance to make up for the lower breeding success later on.