Fledging

Last Tuesday I had been monitoring the nest cam in the house all morning and at times I could only see three babies in the nest.  When I got the binoculars out to check, sure enough the fourth one was trying to peek out and must have been clinging to the inside of the box.  At that point I could only see the little beak and eye as it hadn't gotten that far up to the opening yet.  I was sure that it would only be a matter of time before they would be leaving and was a little sad and worried.  I was sad because I had to leave for PT and wouldn't be back for a few hours, and I was worried because we were expecting thunderstorms that afternoon.  

Well, happily they were all still in there when I returned and since the storm had passed I thought I would take a walk up to the garden to see if I could get a picture of the "peekers".  Luckily I checked the first few before I came back down because the change in temperature had fogged the lens and the first set of pics were very hazy.  I had only to hope at that point that the parents, who had noticed me and were noisily flying from tree to tree in a panic would realize that I wasn't going to hurt anyone with my camera.  Walking away and standing under a nearby tree for a bit calmed them.  Then I stealthily approached the fence and propped the camera with my fingers on the fence to be ready.  Gotcha!

Later that evening I was doing some puttering around in the stamp cave and could hear lots of noise coming from the nest cam but didn't think anything of it until I came downstairs and looked and saw that there were only two babies now in the box.

I grabbed the binocs again and stationed myself at the kitchen window and saw one of those babies come up into the opening.  He got his feet on the edge and tipped forward to allow his wings out of the box.  They looked so pretty splayed across the front of the box.  But he caught his balance and drew them back in.  Father blue was coaxing him from across the garden on the top of the fence and as soon as he caught his balance he lept out and both he and dad flew up into the nearest tree.

Looking at the nest cam I could see the last one nervously jumping around inside the box.  And then he jumped up and as I turned my head to the window I could see him boldly leap out of that box without a parental escort right up into that tree.  

While it would have been lovely to have pictures of that, I was thrilled to actually see those two little ones fledge.