Abandoned nest

Over the winter I noticed that a song thrush was visiting the garden on a regular basis. We had always had one visit occasionally, but each week recently I recorded it's presence as part of the BTO Garden Bird census. Then I started seeing two in the back garden at the same time. This also coincided by a song thrush singing it repetitive song early in the morning somewhere in or near the back garden.

Euonymous varigata. The nest is towards the top.

Last week I disturbed a bird from a thick Euonymous bush growing near the fence. It flew away too fast too see what it was. Over the next week or so I kept my eye open and saw a thrush feeding in the garden regularly, and occasionally making a visit the bush.

A close up view of the nest through the leaves

Last week I had was able to confirm that it was nesting towards the top of the bush. However, over the past 4 days I've not seen it making any visits to the nest.

A view of the nest cup

This afternoon, after watching carefully to see if there was any nesting behaviour, or even a presence it seemed that the nest had been deserted. A sneak look showed 4 eggs, with a leaf in the nest form the bush. But the eggs were also wet. It hasn't rained today, so it is almost certain that they've been abandoned. 









Closer up it's possible to see that the cup of the nest also looks wet, further suggesting that the nest has been abandoned.

Closer up it's possible to see the water drops on the eggs, and the cup also looks wet.

This is a shame, as I've not had any birds nesting in there garden for a couple of years now. The last were a pair of blue tits who nested in one of the he boxes. We watched them for weeks going In and out of the he box. In fact they cleared the garden on insects, says this was one of the few years that the Solomon Seal plants weren't decimated by saw flies!

I hope that we may yet have another nest somewhere in the garden this year. So here's to that hope.