I am sooooooooooo sorry, I will finish the story for you. Got to tell you what we found that night, what was so 'surprising': [This is after we watched the fledgling video several times and saw a shadow across the outdoor camera lens...] We decided that we had better go outside and check the yard to make sure there were no fledglings on the ground before we let our 4 dogs out for the night. Two of our dogs have birding instincts. By this time, it was pitch black (after 9pm). And thanks to our list's researchers, we know there was no moonlight. We each took a flashlight and went out the back door, Dave went one way, I went the other. I headed toward nest box and as I was walking past it, my light caught something out of the corner of my eye that didn't fit ...I saw something on the TOP of the outdoor camera. I YELLED to Dave "It's a snake!!!!!!!!!!!!!". As he was coming to me, he told me to get a reacher [a device used to help folks pick up things beyond their reach], which I gladly did so I could get away from the snake. I grabbed a digital camera but I was too shaky to set it to flash so I don't have a picture from then. This snake was coiled up on top of the outdoor camera!! Coiled twice or three times, it looked HUGE! What first ran through my mind was that the camera might be warm, especially since it'd been on all day. Is the warmth what attracted him? Don't snakes work that way? I've seen Dave try to get a snake we saw in the spring with the reacher and he wasn't successful. Where am I at this time, you ask? Halfway across the yard of course! As Dave extends the reacher toward the snake, it extends its head and body in the other direction as it tried to span the distance between the top of the camera to the underside of one of the patio umbrellas. Just like in the jungle movies. Eeeekkkkk! Reacher-with-snake in one hand, flashlight in his mouth, Dave's moving toward me to grab a plastic bucket that has straight sides and a lid but the lid had a hole in it. I'm screaming "He's going to get out of there, there's a damn hole in the lid!" and my 'Snake Rangler' said "He can't climb up the sides!". I finally edge slowly toward the bucket. As I peeked into the it, flashlight on the snake, I started yelling again "It's got diamonds, diamonds...look at the head...it's triangular...it's a rattler." We have rattlers in these parts. I've not seen any, thank goodness, but some of the male neighbors enjoyed regaling me with stories of them when we first moved here. That and little scorpions which unfortunately I've seen in our basement. I digress. Dave took the snake bucket to the yard past the gate so the dogs wouldn't get at it. He put a flat stone on top of the hole. It took me some time to get to sleep. Of course, I was seeing the snake reaaaccchiiinnnggggg out to me. But I was mostly wondering if the snake was attracted to the warmth of the camera. I didn't say I was thinking logically that night. I was concerned that if the snake was attracted to the heat of the outdoor camera which is the same as the IN BOX camera, are nest boxes with those cameras putting our chicks in danger??? === That's where my head was that night. Keith Kridler, expert and nice guy, identified the snake as a rat snake. They can crawl up ANYTHING, they have good eyesight and probably was watching the nest box for days, and can detect vibration. You know what it's like when a box of 5 15 day old chicks start to flapping their wings and all that kind of activity. Amazing, huh???? Linda...

Here's two links to Brown-headed Cowbird nest parasitism behavior http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown-headed_Cowbird http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/nestdest/index.htm According to these studies Brown-headed Cowbirds not only lay eggs in other birds' nests, they also show "mafia behavior"; They regularly check up on their own eggs and nestlings, and puncture the eggs and kill the nestlings of nesting birds who have removed the cowbird eggs or young, to force the parents to renest. However, researchers in the second study found that Brown-headed Cowbirds often simply destroy the nests of grassland birds without attempting parasitism, perhaps to reduce competition for food to help their young in other nests. The female Brown-headed Cowbird doesn't stop laying eggs all breeding season, about 80 eggs per female, leading ornithologists to call them "passerine chickens" http://www.birds.cornell.edu/bfl/speciesaccts/bnhcow.html Some studies show that nests that lack the harsh, strident call of the cowbird chick are targeted by the cowbirds, so I don't know what to do about the cowbird nestling. The cowbird nestling will probably cause the death of the Chipping Sparrow chicks by hogging all the food, but perhaps removing it would simply bring the Mafia retaliation of the cowbirds; I don't know.

Dedtired, It does sound funny, doesn't it? The eagles have often been referred to has the Hays eagles and in turn have been named, starting with last years eaglet, H1 and this year was H2, H3 and H4...H4 was the runt but was the funniest one to watch...He surely was a survivor and in the end won everyone's heart...He was the last to fledge and I know, along with me, many, many tears were shed...But, happy tears... We have heard and seen them back at the nest to rest but in a few months they'll be on their own...These parents have been unbelievable..Soon after the eggs were layed, we had a very, rainy night and the male, flew into the nest and actually covered the female with his wing, while she was sitting on the eggs.. Come Fall, the pair will start to repair the same nest and get ready for their next family and, sadly, the present babies will not be welcome but thought of as intruders...But, the babies will continue to mature and in about 5 years will find their mates and start families...It really has been a wonderful adventure, watching "my" babies grow.....

Sorry Linda...I use too much jargon. Wait till my "AF Veteran" kicks in! LOL HOSP is English House Sparrow. The non-native scourge of all our native cavity nesters. ASY is an "After Second Year" Purple Martin. It's an adult. The year they hatch they are called HYs. Hatching Years. This fall my HYs will migrate to southern Brazil. When they come back next spring they will have their juvenile coloring and be called SY (Second Years) although they are now only one year old. It's the second year they've been in northern American though. A few SY females will breed and nest. An even smaller number of SY males may breed. Then next fall the SYs (2010) they again migrate back to Brazil and molt into their finally adult plumage. When they come back again, (Spring 2011) they will be fully mature, ready to successfully bred and be called ASYs.