This will be my last post about the bluebird nestlings I have been watching. They were 12 days old on this date, fully grown with eyes wide open and only some further feather development left before they fledge which should be sometime within next week. It won't be possible to open the box up again for another look without risking having them fledge prematurely so this will be it. I will continue to watch over the site from a distance until they fledge and will then clean all the nest boxes to hopefully encourage a second brood. With bluebirds, as soon as they leave the nest they are gone for good (but will remain in the same territory for the remainder of the season) and the parent birds often start on a second brood right away in the same box if it is cleaned out quickly.

On this day, we took some of the nestlings out to make sure there were in good health, no parasites like blowflies, etc before leaving them to their future. Meanwhile, the chickadees are just getting started in their nests (below). One nest is a day behind the other. House Wrens have also started building dummy nests in some of the other boxes which was new from last time I checked.