Things change quickly in the bird world. Two of our nests have fledged their birds, two remain empty from previous evictions of their occupants by house wren activities, and two nests are still hosting nestlings.

The Cow Pasture nest box, which had its brood of 5 bluebird eggs removed and destroyed by a house wren, is unoccupied. There’s still a bluebird nest in the box, but there’s been no activity for at least two weeks.

The six chickadee nestlings in the Explore the Wild nest box are developing well. I don’t expect they’ll be in the nest box by next week’s inspection, they will have fledged.

The 5 chickadee nestlings that had occupied the nest box next to the old site of the Bungee Jump have fledged. In their place is the beginnings of a house wren nest.

Like the Cow Pasture nest, a house wren had emptied the contents of the nest at the service road to Into the Mist. It held seven chickadee eggs. There’s been no further activity since.

There are four growing chickadees in the nest box next to the Woodlands Classrooms. They may still be in the nest by next week’s inspection.

The three nestlings in the bluebird nest at the Butterfly House have fledged. Quick to react to the vacancy, a house wren has started a nest in the box.

Finally, we have two occupied nests with nestlings, the Explore the Wild nest (6 chickadees) and the Woodlands nest (4 chickadees). Two nest boxes have fledged their nestlings (Bungee, 5 chickadees and Butterfly House, 3 bluebirds). Those two nest boxes now have the start of house wren nests within. Two nest boxes remain inactive after having been emptied of their eggs by house wrens several weeks ago (Cow Pasture nest and Into the Mist nest).

We have a total of 10 chickadee nestlings and have had 8 birds fledge to date.

See you next week.