I definitely would not try anything once the eggs are in the nest but I'm just itching to get that focus right. I adjusted for what I thought would be the bottom of the nest material and did not think about a little higher to account for the birds height. Maybe the babies will at least be in focus initially until they grow. They looks like the first layer is a certain type of moss.

My observation is that in the egg-laying phase, the female roosts in the box to lay an egg in the early morning, then she leaves the box for the day. This is what the 'book' also says. However, there is a difference between what the 'book' says and what I have observed this year as to the start of incubation. The 'book' says that she starts incubating, i.e. she stays in the box for the day with short interruptions (and roosts in the box at night) when she has laid her penultimate egg. In other words, the 'book' says that she will lay another egg the next morning after she stays in the box for the first incubation day. What I have observed this year is that she did not lay another egg after she stayed in the box for the first incubation day. (She is incubating 7 eggs now) As to fur blankets, what I have observed are fur blankets of up to perhaps half an inch thick. Last year bird was somewhat diligent in covering the eggs when she left the box. This year bird mostly leaves the eggs uncovered when she leaves the box. This different nesting behavior is perhaps another indication that it is not the same bird that nests in the box.

The 3 babies are still in the box this morning, a few hours short of 14 days old (they hatched in the afternoon hours). The baby birds in my pic do not hunker down, that is their normal position when they are at rest in the nest cup and at complete ease. They do gape when I inadvertently make a noise, even a soft noise. This is not like usual monitoring where the baby birds see the monitor. I know this all because I peek several times a day in my special spybox and have watched them at rest, move about, fluttering their wings, etc (I have also done monitoring the usual way) Yesterday late evening I peeked in the box, briefly turning on a faint light and saw the mother bird sleeping and fluffed up big time. It was a bit colder than the previous days at 8 degrees Centigrade. She looked very much like a mammal with very long fur, LOL.

PF, I have a video of Delane's--her roses of course. But on the tape, she does a stroke leaf that may be what you are talking about. The difference I saw between her's and DD's was that she did not turn the brush around so both edges of the leaf were dark on the outside. She made both strokes holding the brush the same so the 2nd stroke actually made the vein in the middle of the leaf. Gosh, it's hard to describe things in words isn't it? LOL Yes, I'm aware that stroke painting was around long before DD came along--but DD was just able to turn it into a sort of "gimmick" that caught everyone's attention and her advertising and marketing strategies sure paid off for her, didn't they? I would imagine that she might have ticked off a few of the established painters in the beginning, but I also imagine even they were later appreciative of the fact that her "One Stroke" campaign sure got allot of people interested in painting. I loved it in the late 80's, early 90's when there were so many cute painting shops around and you could buy supplies, take classes, or just see some of the finished projects and they made you want to make one too! Now they are almost all gone, and even Michael's here has done away with their painting book section! I asked where they moved it, and they said "Oh, we took it out to make room for more beads". Now if I want a book, it's either order online--or watch for older ones to show up at the TS. This area had allot of painters back in the day--and I keep thinking several of them may be getting "too old" to still be painting and might be getting rid of their stash of books, so I always look for them. (Not that I NEED more--but I just love looking through them and admiring all the designs) ;o) Did you read Anj's post about finding stacks of painting books at one of the TS she went to this week--she bought lots of books for only 25 cents each! I've kept the rose worksheet you made for us and have tried to follow it. My biggest problem is that since I learned the DD rose first--that one just keeps "popping" out of my brush strokes! LOL I'd love a step by step worksheet on how you do your leaves. I have read some of the books where the artist did multiple layers of floats to get the realistic effect--I just don't have the patience to do all the mixes and layers I guess, I prefer just the "suggestion" of a leaf most of the time because that's so much easier and "atainable" for me. (Big sigh) This is fun chatting about painting. Luvs