What's happening to the tomtits? December 11th

I spent some time up on Stacey’s track today checking nests. The eggs at KD18, a black robin nest, still haven’t hatched after 19 days. The average time from egg laying to hatching in black robins is 18 days, so these guys are running a little late. But the mother is still sitting on them, and doesn’t move even when I tap on the fallen tree trunk in which she nests.

Female tomtit:

On my way back I was doing a bit of nest searching along Stacey’s and Chiquitas Track and a little Chatham Island Tomtit hopped past. It was a boy (you can tell as he has black feathers on his back whereas the females have brown). When he got the worm I fed him he was delighted! He started a song which can only be translated into English as “Hey! I’ve got a worm. Me. Over here. I’VE GOT A WORM.” This allows the female tomtits to hear and come over and see him as a potential mate as he is a good provider of fresh worms. But there are very few female tomtits on the Island this year. We’ve found only 13 tomtit nests so far. And even worse, none of the fledglings that Melanie banded last year have been re-sighted this year, compared to half of the robins banded last year.

Male tomtit:

I stayed on the track for about 15 minutes, feeding other birds and looking for other nests, and the entire time I kept hearing the same tomtit song; “I’ve got a worm. I’VE GOT A WORM.” It broke my heart. When I got home there was even worse news. Fast Eddie, the tomtit who lives around the hut lost all his three chicks that hatched only yesterday! We don’t know who took them, but the nest is empty. All that effort in reproducing has come to nothing. We’re very fond of Eddie and fed him extra worms yesterday evening to pass on to his mate who needs to get her strength up to try to lay more eggs before the end of the breeding season. Eddie is a comfort eater like me and he ate several worms before fitting four worms into his beak to bring to his mate. As Brigitta says “Our sympathy is with the family,” and it is; both with Eddie and his mate and the whole Rangatira tomtit population!