Finally Blogger lets me post pictures... hooray for Picasa!

Doesn't look too happy at being photographed.

Feeding time.

Showing off its perching skills in the cage.

Relaxing after the arduous task of opening its beak while someone puts food in it. Yawn.

As you can see, the little chap's doing well. He/she's eating loads now, begs for food every time I approach the cage. I took it out earlier and had a good look at the wings, the feathers are almost fully developed now, with only a little of that protective covering on the flight feathers. The tail feathers are pretty much the same. Although it can't fly properly yet, it can do a flappy hop onto my hand and it flapped down to the bottom of the cage then climbed up onto a perch (where it then fell asleep, bless). I think it will start flying within the next few days which will be fun!

Rehabilitation-wise, tits need to be hand-fed for 2-3 weeks after they start flying, even though they'll be feeding themselves too. Once this little one starts eating by itself I'll let it out into the orchard during the day and bring it back in at night and feed it throughout the day until it doesn't take food anymore. To help with this I'm training it to come when I call, obviously once it's outside I can't climb up trees to feed it so it will need to come to me!

I'm exhausted after getting up so early yesterday, doing housework all day, entertaining friends and getting to bed at 2am. Then getting up to feed the little one at 6am. Lovely Michael did the next ones though, and let me sleep until 1pm. I feel better for it, though still pretty tired. But it's good for me to have something to do. I dread to think what it would be like to have a baby!

As for names... Michael suggested Sapphire (since it's a blue tit) but says it's it's a bit girly in case it's a boy and thinks the same about my suggestion of Sky. Then he said that we could call it Porno, also because it's blue. Hmm.