Bird Watching: Bluebird Nestlings Peeking Out, 1 by 2dCousinDave

2dCousinDave wrote:
Well, forget what I said about two fledging on Sunday. All five fledged today. Here I have been standing, literally, from daylight to dusk with three cameras trained of the nest box and all I saw was a lot of peeking, all day Sunday and all day Monday. I got up at 5:00 a.m. today, thinking there were three chicks left in the nest and determined to get a picture of at least one of them as it left. The parents were there at first light, already trying to coax them out, but nothing happened until 7:15. One bird squeezed out to the edge of the opening and sat there. Then, suddenly, he left. I was holding a wireless remote and pushed it but there is a slight delay before the camera reacts to the signal. I got a great shot of the tip of his tail.

In less than a minute number two left and number three was about five seconds behind him. I kept clicking the remotes and did get a picture of one of them. Probably number three.

At that point I thought it was over, since I had assumed two of the five had fledged on Sunday. I was surprised to see two more heads appear in the opening and I had to wait until after 8:00 p.m. for these two to finally leave.

Pictures? I was using three cameras mounted on tripods, all with telephoto lenses and all controlled by wireless remotes, and a fourth camera with a 400mm lens that I used sort of like a spotting scope. All were aimed at the nest box. Needless to say I got a lot of pictures but most of them were insignificant and/or redundant. I haven't looked at them all but here are a few. In this instance I was too close (my primary camera was just five feet from the box) so any movement by the bird is exaggerated. So please overlook that. Due to the location of the nest box, there was no other place to set up my cameras.

Here is bird number three, about to go.


This message was edited Jun 24, 2009 3:16 AM