December
2/12 - Doctoral defence
On friday 2 December Lars Erik Johannessen defended his doctoral thesis "Effects of social rearing environment on song learning, paternity patterns
and paternal investment". The adjudicating committee consisted of Professor Carel ten Cate, Leiden University, The Netherlands (1. opponent), Professor Trond Amundsen,
The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim (2. opponent) and Professor Helene M. Lampe, University of Oslo (administrator). Details of
the thesis are to be found here.
July
Breeding season over
The tit breeding season is now over for this year. After a very nice and warm start, the season turned out to be probably the worst season ever for our tits.
A large proportion of the pairs were forced to renest after having failed in their first breeding attempt. Probably the cold weather we experienced during the
last half of April, combined with some heavy rain during incubation and hatching, caused the severe loss of nestlings seen. However, for the pairs that started
nesting later, and those which renested, conditions turned more favourable and most of their offspring survived to fledging. Total production of fledglings in our
populations was therefore not as low as feared during the worst parts of the season, although the number of fledglings represented an all-time low.
April
22/4 - Egg laying started
On exactly the same date as last year, the first blue tit layed an egg on 18 April. Until today, a total of 7 blue tits have started laying, as have some
nuthatches and a coal tit. A blackbird female was even found incubating on her four eggs today!
6/4 - Nest building started
Today the first nests of blue tits were found in our nest boxes. The nuthatches have probably started nest building still earlier, but as they tend to prefer
natural cavities over our boxes this is more difficult to say for sure. However, the rainy weather expected the next days now will probably delay any further
development of these nests.
March
7/3 - New PostDoc has arrived
Valentin Amrhein has joined our group, and will be working with us for the rest of 2005. During his stay he will study seasonal and diurnal patterns in the
song of our tits, as well as radio-tracking some of them to reveal how they prospect for new territories. More details on his plans
can be found here.
1/3 - TV program about the cross-fostering project
On tuesday 1 March, the TV program "Ut i naturen" was devoted mainly to our project. Professor Tore Slagsvold explained how birds, like the blue tits and great tits,
sometimes may be cross-fostered also in nature, and what consequences this may have for the "personal identity" of the bird, its behaviour, song, mating preferences etc.
The program can be seen on NRK's web pages.
April
28/4 - Pied flycatcher arrived
The first pied flycatcher was seen in the field today, a male. Nearly 50 blue tit pairs have started egg laying, while nearly 20 great tits have done so; a great tit and a coal tit female have even commenced incubation!
20/4 - Egg laying started
All our study species, except the pied flycatcher, have now started egg laying. A nuthatch was the first to lay, on April 13, then two blue tits followed on April 18, and on April 19 a great tit and a coal tit laid their first egg.
13/4 - Field season has started
Many blue tits and some great tits have allready started nest building. Some nuthatches are just awaiting slightly higher temperatures before commencing egg laying. Quite some migrants have also arrived, including the first chiffchaffs, wood and stock pigeons, and numerous redwings and chaffinches. Several hawfinches were also singing today.
