 | 24 September 2014 |
| |
| BBC Homepage | | |
| |||
| Contact Us | | |
Nature FeaturesYou are in: Wiltshire > Nature > Nature Features > Bringing up baby... Rambo Bringing up baby... RamboTo keep a baby blue tit alive takes over 100 visits a day and 1,000 plus caterpillars or, if they're lucky, a man in Cricklade called Dave.  Dave and Rambo It was back in mid-May, live on a webcam nest-cam, that Spring Watch became Stress Watch when a blue tit mother left a nesting box in Cricklade for the last time and a nest full of chicks just a few days old. For Dave Charles, the owner of the 25-year-old home-made nesting box and webcam, there was only one thing to be done... adopt: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites  This is the thing with webcams. If we didn't have them we wouldn't see any of this going on and we wouldn't intervene. But obviously I stepped in when I realised we had no parents left. Unfortunately, over the course of time, we lost five of them… but here we are with Rambo. Sexing RamboHe's 23 days old today and I've been looking after him since he was just five days old. He got his name because he was the biggest. Somebody came up with the name Rambo, in the webcam chat room, and it's stuck with him ever since. He's been called Rambo but we don't know if he's a boy or a girl and I don't know how you sex birds. When they're adults they're still pretty much the same although the male tends to be a little bit smaller but without the two together it's really hard to do a comparison.  The original nest... De-heading 3,000 mealwormsTo begin with I was feeding them every 15 minutes. And, over the last three weeks, I would say I've got through a good 3,000 mealworms easy… which all had to be painstakingly de-headed and have their digestive tracks taken out manually by-hand. But it's relaxed a bit now and I only feed Rambo every hour which is a great bonus. He loves his food. He's on quite a good diet of meal worms, bird rearing food formula, extra vitamins and also wet dog biscuits every now and again. Oh and wax worms which apparently are like sweets to them so you've got to be careful you don’t give them too many. Indoor dawn chorusI'm very, very proud of him. He's a proper little bird now. Every morning he'll start up. It's not so much a dawn chorus but when he gets hungry… he gets very vocal. And, at times, he just seems to chirp because he likes the sound of his own chirp. And he's already starting to lose all his fluffiness and get his yellow colouring out the front and he's absolutely ace at flying now. I didn't have to teach him how to fly.  A meal of mealworms... The next step though is pecking… I've basically got to get him pecking and picking up food and stuff off the floor for himself and then I can let him go into the big wide world. It's been a very lovely experience but if you are going to take it on board you've got to be pretty dedicated especially when you're feeding every 15 minutes. It's very time consuming but yes I would do it all over again. Losing FaithBut there have been lows. Losing any animal, if it's in your care, is a great loss and sadly they deteriorated one by one for reasons unbeknownst to me. Faith, who also got named by somebody else in the chat room, was the fifth one remaining but she had something wrong with her legs. She wasn't quite right. So we popped her up to the vets and he checked her over and said it should be OK in time. But sadly on Monday she started to fade from about 9 o'clock onwards and at 11:27 she passed away in my hand… and I did shed a tear, I must admit, it was a big loss. I'd got that far and unfortunately we lost her. So now we just have Rambo… but not for long.  I reckon in about four or five days he should be pretty much ready to go. But it's going to make a lot of people sad because he's got a very big fan following. Although from the research I've done, on the Internet, out in the wild they have a two km radius of where they stay.  So, all being well, I'd like to think he'll stay in the area. And, you never know, maybe next year he might even come back in the nest and have a brood of his own. last updated: 09/06/2008 at 09:14 Have Your SayAlcander Sylv Cindy of Tucson Arizona USA Ann of Wroughton martha Dave Charles bev from street, somerset Dave Charles verity Wilts girl at heart Mary Guruparan Ann of Wroughton Betty the one and only Staggs joy Marilyn You are in: Wiltshire > Nature > Nature Features > Bringing up baby... Rambo    |
| | About the BBC | Help | Terms of Use | Privacy & Cookies Policy |
