Babies out the whazoo

Between yesterday and today, thirteen (yes, you read that right) baby House Wrens have hatched in two of my nest boxes.  One proud papa and two harried mamas are now busy shuttling in the tiniest insects imaginable.  To give you some idea as to the size of these little creatures, the nest cup they are huddled in is about 2 inches side to side.  So, they are about the size of pencil erasers.  Not a super photo, but the only way to get this is to stick my iphone in the top of the box, click and hope for the best.  Nest monitoring needs to be done quickly so as not to stress parents or nestlings.  Usually I am in and out in under a minute.

This box has seven babies and the other box appears to have six although I can't tell for certain.  The bluebirds are sitting on 5 eggs which will probably hatch next weekend while we are away.  By my estimating, these wrens should fledge in about 2 weeks.  Hard to believe they can go from bald and blind to flight-ready that fast.  Nature is amazing.

Joined two friends from my nature group this morning and we had a really nice hike around a huge natural area.  We saw/heard a number of birds, but no snakes as the temps were just too chilly.  For the same reason, we saw very few dragons either.  But, we did see a nice number of Red Efts (salamander babies) and I'll put a shot in Extra if you want to have a look.

Hoping for good weather tomorrow as I am determined to get a shot of the baby Downy Woodpeckers.  And speaking of babies, thank you so very much for sending my cardinals to the front page of Pops!  What a nice surprise.  

Happy Friday, people.

Debbi