Remember how I got a bird nestbox a couple of years ago hoping to attract some Violet-green swallows to our yard? But I put it up too late in the spring, so no Violet-green Swallows came? (Not that I've seen any but the highest flying swallows in our immediate neighborhood anyway.) And Bucko saw a Bewick's Wren checking out the box some time in the summer? Remember that?
Well, last year, when winter was finally over (~June), a pair of Black-capped Chickadees moved in. We never saw them moving nesting material into the box, but it was obvious after a week that they were nesting there. Eventually, only one bird was flying to and from the box, so I figured that the other was then sitting on the nest. The All About Birds told me that the incubation period was 12-13 days, and sure enough, within a couple of weeks, we could hear tiny peepings from within. After a week or so, the peepings turned into rudimentary, scratchy-sounding chick-a-dee-dee-dees.
The parent birds worked hard, both of them constantly out catching bugs to take back to the little ones. Probably no more than three minutes (tops!) passed without one parent flying back to the box with food.
Eventually, I could even see the young birds scrambling up to the hole whenever the parent would leave after dropping off a morsel.
And then one day, they were gone. They had fledged.
It was the day after that when Bucko first caught sight of the young ones. Two of them. Usually sitting on one of the wires up front while the parents went to fetch them a nibble. By the next day, we were seeing them regularly. The parents would lead them to the seed feeders and pluck our sunflower seeds, hopefully showing the little dumbasses how to do it themselves.
And then the babies grew up and looked just like all the other chickadees, so we couldn't pick them out of a crowd.
A pair of chickadees moved into the nest box again this year - maybe a month ago. The babies were hatched before we went to Wallowa Lake. Yesterday, I went outside to check on the progress of The Garden and saw one food delivery to the box. I haven't spent much time outdoors this week though, as we've been having a cold/rainy spell.
It's a little warmer and drier today though. Every time I've been out, I've not seen a single chickadee around the box. I'm guessing that the babies fledged this morning. I hope that we'll get to see them soon.
Here's one of last year's babies, just a few days after fledging.

Still got a bit of pink on its bill.