Top Photo: Eastern bluebird eggs.

In our seventh week of nest box inspections we have about 20 nestlings, 15 of which belong to bluebirds and 5 with chickadee parents. There are 4 chickadee eggs being incubated.

The Cow Pasture nest box looks to have a full house of 5 nestlings. What appears to be a big ball of feathers and flesh is a handful of individual nestlings. If you look closely you can pick out several beaks, some feet and even more wings.

The Explore the Wild nest box is, as it has been for three weeks or more, abandoned.

The Into the Mist nest box continues to be the most animated of nests when being inspected. The adult birds always greet me with annoyance and scolding and today with a dive bomb or two.

The chickadees in the nest box on the east side of the parking deck have added 2 to their clutch for a total of 4 brown-speckled, white eggs. An adult was in the box when I approached and may have been incubating. This may be all the eggs this nest is going to see.

Over on the west side of the deck there are 5 nestlings, three of which were more interested in food than having their pictures taken. But of course, opening your big, wide and colorful mouth to any noise around the nest is an innate reaction meant to steer an incoming, food-bearing parent to your mouth and not that of a sibling’s. They can’t help it.

Last week there were 5 eggs in the chickadee nest inside the Butterfly House nest box. It’s difficult to see just how many of the eggs have hatched (photo), so for now the unofficial tally will be 5(?) eggs.

So, there currently appears to be 15 bluebird nestlings among three bluebird nests. There are about 5 chickadee nestlings in one nest and 4 eggs in another chickadee nest.