Today is the day! While I was washing up breakfast dishes this morning, just before leaving for church, chickadee baby #1, poked its head out of the birdhouse, looked around for about 5 mins. and then just took off. Baby #2, tentatively looked out of the hole, but decided he/she wasn't quite ready to check out the world.
When we got home from church, baby #2, with some encouragement from attentive parents waiting nearby, finally decided to take the plunge. He/she made it out of the birdhouse, flapped about a bit, trying to figure out where to land and safely made it to the roof of the outbuilding. Whew!
Baby #3 (not sure if there are more than 3!) has looked out of the hole, but has decided to sleep in for a bit longer!
It's been such a treat to watch these hard-working parents attend to their offspring. I've discovered several things by watching them:
1. They work in tandem, one primarily brings little green worms, the other brings moths and such. Sometimes one parent will spend some time in the nest and the other parent will feed it as well as the babies.
2. They apparently know how many babies should be in/not in the nest. After the first two left, I wondered if they would come back to check on the third one. They have and are still feeding it and encouraging it to "get a job"!
I'm curious to see if they come back to the nest at all after all the babies have left.
1 comment:
Aunt Sally is smiling I am certain... love to read you blog. Thanks Ridge for sharing, love, Eliza
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