Well, I forecasted that these chicks would fledge today. They had better get a move on!
At least being spread out like this means that it is easy to see that there are still 9 chicks in the nest box.
Another clear picture of 9 chicks.
This picture was taken at 5.40pm. None of them is showing much sign of wanting to leave the nest box.
At last - a chick that seems interested in the world outside!
I hope it likes what it sees - it's a wonder that it can make any sense of it at all, seeing how it is viewing it for the first time.
Inside the box, you can see the chick on the exit hole, and the rest of the chicks showing absolutely no interest whatsoever.
This chick looks serious. It's calling while it is in the exit hole. Perhaps it won't be long before it goes!
The first chick looks as though it is about to go and the others are starting to realise what is happening.
But, when it came to it, this chick just couldn't bring itself to leave its home for the first time, and retreats to rejoin the rest of its family.
However, this chick is not going to be beaten and a few seconds later, it is back again.
Will it leave this time?
It looks like it. You can see it's claws as it grips the front of the nest box hole.
This time it goes!
(Chick 1)
The remaining chicks clearly don't quite know what has happened. Some seem surprised, bu most show no interest in this momentous event at all!
It is a momentous event because once a chick has left the nest box it never comes back to it. It's life has changed for ever.
As often happens, once one chick leaves, the others want to follow. Less than a minute has passed since the first chick laft and here, almost without hesitation, a second chick is leaving!
There it goes!
(Chick 2)
Less than 30 seconds later, a third chick leaves!
(Chick 3)
At this point, the system automatically shut down for the night as it does every evening at this time. Unfortunately, it was nearly 15 minutes before I realised what had happened and turned things on again. By this time a fourth chick had gone.
There was then a pause for about half an hour and I thought that there would be no more chicks leaving that evening. After all, it was now nearly 9 o'clock when all good chicks should be tucked up for the night!
However, suddenly a fifth chick decided to go and with little prevarication it left the nest box.
Away it flies!
(Chick 5)
I waited another half an hour, but at half past nine I decided that no more chicks would fledge today. It was pretty dark outside, so this was probably just as well. I thought that the rest would fledge early in the morning, so set Windows so that it wouldn't re-start for an update in the middle of the night, and also set things so that the system restarted automatically at around 5.30am tomorrow morning. I didn't want to miss another lot of chicks fledging!