Fledge Day was Saturday!

They are getting restless. Look at those eyes! What cute faces you guys have.

Saturday I heard a lot of noise in the box, wings flapping and such. The adults were going crazy! I saw black flashes coming out of the nest box. I finally opened up the box and saw there was only one baby left!
After running to the store, I checked the box again and they were all gone! One of them ended up in my neighbors flower pot. I was looking forward to getting some photos of the fledglings, but it was not to be. There is one egg left in the box, near 3 o'clock. It was a dud and never hatched!

Look at how big they have grown!

This picture was taken on Wednesday. There are six, but one is being squished! These are about lifesized.

I miss-counted!

After sitting out on my deck for about 45 minutes, waiting for the adults to leave the trees and come to the nest box on my deck, I gave up and checked on the babies. There are actually 6 of them! They are so tiny, this picture is misleading. So far everything is looking good. The adults do not let any other birds near the feeder, so I think the babies should be safe from attack and such.

Oops, sorry to bother you!

I thought I would take another picture of the babies. I usually tap on the bird house just before I open it up, just in case there is an adult in the house. This time however, no one flew out of the house, so I assumed it was save to lift the lid. I think I was as surprised as the adult bird! What a picture though!

5 baby chickadees!

I have had a bird house up for about 3 years or so. The last two years there have been eggs, but no hatched chicks. Yesterday I was weedding the plants on the deck and thought, maybe if I cleaned out the old nest debris, new birds would move in. Gently I took the house off the wall and opened up the hinged lid. I was so shocked to see no eggs, but 5 live, moving babies. Then I realized the chickadee in the tree was "yelling" at ME. I appologized to her, replaced the house and promptly went inside. Later in the day, once the two adults were gone away bug hunting, I lifted the lid and snapped a picture. WOW!

The frogs have been set free!

After several months, the children and I decided that the frogs would do better in the wild. So, they have been set free, back into the marsh were they were found as eggs.