> Hello Tweeters,
>
> Saturday morning (May 27th) we watched four young very unsteady
> chickadees leave the wall-mounted bird house hung 3 feet from our back
> door. After numerous window bumps and near crashes, all four spent the
> remainder of the day sitting around on branches waiting for green
> larvae and suet to be delivered by the now very haggard-looking
> parents. Occasionally, the juveniles interrupted their perching with
> short bursts of flight from cherry to maple trees and back again. It
> was absolutely magical to see their flight improve as the day passed.
> This is the sixth year a Madam & a Monsieur, as my wife affectionately
> calls the parents, have used this location to raise one, sometimes two
> broods a year.
>
> Amazingly, three out of the six years, the first brood has fledged on
> May 27th. The other three years?within a day or two of May 27th. Three
> out of five previous years they have started a second brood soon after
> the first, bringing nesting to fruition only twice, with two broods
> yielding unhatched eggs. We are already feeling lonely without seeing
> Madam & Monsiuer making their many many trips every day into their
> bird house with food for the hatchlings. We hope to see them start
> anew in a few days to bring additional moss and cat fur to line
> another nest. Easy for us to say of course, we're not doing all the work.
>
> Hopefully watching,
>
> Wendy John & Bill Morris
> Green Lake
> liam.morris at comcast.net