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Little faces in the hole - 2nd nesting

18 years ago

Well it has been a loooong day...

Day 15 since our second clutch hatched, and there's been non-stop activity in the box since 6am. I've taken hundreds of photos and I'm not sure these are the best of them... but anyway I wanted to share some precious little faces in the hole. :)

That last one in the lower right who's hanging way out actually fledged at about 4:35pm this evening. I got some pictures of him (another "first boy out of the box") in the Magic Tree, which I'll try to post tomorrow... Assuming his nest-mates (3 or 4 more) who are spending another night in the box don't take all day tomorrow to spread their little wings.

Kenn :)

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Comments (9)

dave_in_va
18 years ago
Very interesting collage. I have never seen two heads at the hole at the same time and it's so cute.

Dave
kenn3d
Original Author
18 years ago
Hi Dave and all,

This was the first time for us to see more than one at a time also... the 5th frame (center bottom) actually shows 4 at once. It was getting kinda crowded in there.

And I'm now very happy to report that all 5 eggs had hatched afterall... and all 5 chicks have fledged successfully as of @2pm today! :)
So here are some more pictures of them...

The first one to leave, (@4pm yesterday) hesitated, then stumbled on his way out and hung upside down from the hole for a few seconds, flapping in panic. We were caught totally off-guard and missed getting a shot of that frantic moment...
This frame was just before that happened:

But he quickly recovered, and safely flew to the Magic Tree:

...where he was immediately joined by both proud parents.

The rest of the crew (4 of them) spent another night in the box, and Missy and Mr.B began feeding them non-stop starting around 5:30am this morning.

Until 10:43 when our second contestant (another boy) made his debut:

He flew over the house and into a tree in the front yard... I couldn't see where he landed and didn't want to miss the others fledging so I didn't chase after him.

Interestingly, the fledglings from the first nesting were hanging around quite alot during this whole time...
On the deck:

... on the gaslight:

... and on the nest box too. They've shown quite an interest in their new siblings all along, and parents have been fairly tolerant about it.

The 3rd bird out was a girl, and she made an elegantly graceful first flight straight to the top of the RedBud tree:

Where she landed on a very thin willowy branch and struggled to maintain her perch swaying in the breeze:
{{!gwi}}

The 4th and 5th birds fledged about 10 minutes apart, around 2pm this afternoon and I didn't get very good photos of either... not sure the sex on these two:

Needless to say I'll be hoping to get a LOT more shots of all these new darlings. And we are overjoyed to have another successful fledging of FIVE!

Kenn :)
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dave_in_va
18 years ago
Nice captures, Kenn. Congratulations!

I see you got your bright sunshine.

Dave
debbie321
18 years ago
AWESOME pictures!!!
Thanks!!
Debbie
Tx
kenn3d
Original Author
18 years ago
Thanks,

>I see you got your bright sunshineYes, a mixed blessing to be sure. Even so, with such harsh contrast, to try for decent exposures the best shutter speeds achieved were only 1/800... way slow for stopping motion hand-held. And zoomed to over 600mm the DOF was shallow... It was pretty much to hope for to capture them - on the wing and in focus :[

But I'm still delighted to have recorded their launching, and so proud of our growing Bluebird family. I am anxious to catch up with these new kids in the trees.

Kenn :)
bluebars
18 years ago
Great captures Kenn! (I don't often get to view your pics because your hosting site is blocked.)
BlueBars
kenn3d
Original Author
18 years ago
Thanks bluebars,

But I'm concerned to hear our photos are being blocked for you. Our host is SmugMug, a widely-used photo host with no ads, spam links, or spyware. I can't imagine why it would not link for you.

Is anyone else here experiencing such a problem?
Can you access Our Gallery using this link?

We love to share our photos with other bird lovers. They are not for sale or available for any commercial purpose, but are viewed freely by the many thousands each month. If anyone is having problems seeing our photos either in the forums or on our site, please let me know so I can try to do something to correct this. Feel free to email me with any feedback.

Kenn
dzyg
18 years ago
Great shots, lucky you seeing them go! Glad you were able to photograph it!!

Donna
bluebars
18 years ago
No kenn3d, they are blocked at the firewall at work, so I can't even see them at lunchtime. But I can see them at home! Hooray!
BlueBars

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