4th June 2005

Looked at the birdcam early this morning and was surprised to see that six of the chicks have already departed. That's two days ahead of my prediction. I cannot say exactly what time they went, but I know that it was some time between 9:45pm last night and 5:40am this morning. I wish that I had activated the Infra Red LED's. That way I would have been able to record them through the hours of darkness. This is a must for next year.

This means that the oldest chicks were ready to leave just 19 days after hatching. These birds certainly develope fast.

I was pleased to witness the departure of one of the three remaining chicks at 5:50am this morning. It took a fair bit of coaxing, but the parents finally managed to persuade it to leave the comfort of the nest box and venture into the outside world. They did this by hovering outside the entrance hole with mealworms in their beaks . Eventually curiosity or hunger took over and it launched itself into the unknown. I did not see much of it, as it quickly vanished into thick bushes.

This leaves two chicks. One is fairly well developed and looks like it should have left along with its brothers and sisters. The other is the youngest of the bunch, christened Tinkerbell by my Niece. This little one may need a day or two before it is ready to leave.

Initially the parents were quite adamant that the older chick should move out. They refused to feed it, giving the baby all the attention instead. It looked quite dejected, but was going nowhere. After may hours the parents relented and began to feed it.

I shall be monitoring the progress of the remaining two chicks closely over the next couple of days.

3rd June 2005

The older chicks are looking out through the nest box hole, wanting to explore the outside world. They are not quite ready to leave yet, maybe Sunday or Monday. The chicks busy themselves preening feathers and exercising their wing muscles with manic flapping. All you see is a blur. It must create quite a draft inside the box.

The camera images are looking a bit dull lately. I wonder if there maybe dust on the lense. If there is it will have to stay there, as I cannot disturb things now. The images are also affected by the quality of light entering the nest box. Images look better at certain times of the day, when there is just the right amount of light entering at the right angle.

The chicks are only 3 or 4 days away from leaving the bird box. I would like to be present when this happens, but I think this may not be possible. I have no idea of telling what time of day this will happen. I will check some sites to see what happened last year. If there is a pattern and I can predict the time, I may be able to catch them leaving on a camcorder. Either way I will have pictures and recordings from inside the bird box.