If you think that you know for sure what was going on, don't post it yet. You can email me with it, though. I'll be telling the whole story before Monday when my husband goes into the hospital for a full knee replacement.

Bluebird blessings, Linda...

=======================
Greetings from the Sweltering South,

I have had a very interesting few days. Five bluebird chicks fledgled on Monday
night under very 'unusual' circumstances.

This was a very unexpected brood to begin with. The parents had tried 2 times
to have brood in the nest cam box in our back yard. Both times there were
different reasons why they weren't successful (long story). I figured I'd have
no baby bluebirds this year. At the end of June, Daddy encouraged Mama to try
again here so she spruced up the nest cup in the nest left in the box, laid 5
eggs, incubated them for 14 days and they all hatched! No one was more
surprised and delighted than me! This female had only 2 chicks survive out of 5
last year.

The days for the chicks in the nest box were pretty much 'by the book.' The
biggest issue was the unrelenting heat here in NW Georgia. I do not remember a
summer as hot and humid for so long in the 21 years we've lived here. I put a
small umbrella over the box, then a patio umbrella over that and then another
patio umbrella to back that one up! I had a probe for wireless thermometer
inside the box and I monitored the temperature in the comfort of my air
conditioning (I had a probe in the nest connected to a wireless temperature
transmitter).

Five chicks in the box made for close quarters. With the nest box camera in it,
I watched the chicks grow and from days 13 on they become more interested in
those things called wings. They preened them, stretched them, flapped them.
Each day they became more active.

I have a curse on me when it comes to fledgings. I seem to miss them. This
time I decided that it wouldn't happen. I put an outdoor camera connected to
the living room TV to record the activity from the =outside= of the box while I
watched the goings-on =inside= the box on my desktop as it recorded on my hard
drive.

Monday was day 15 and during the day the chicks alternated between being active
and napping. I'm sure the heat affected how much they could do for any length
of time.

It was 8pm and getting dark. Sundown was 8:37pm. I was tired...I love my
bluebirds but a full day of "Bird TV" does get on one's nerves (cheep, ... >)

About 8:20 I got ready for bed. I left the TV for with my husband in the living
room. I was in bed but not asleep yet and I heard Dave calling "1 is ready to
go, it's 8:50, another one is getting ready..." Of course I thought that he was
joking (he does that a lot) so I didn't get up right away. He continued "now 3
now 4 now 5!!!!!! It looks like they planned it this way!" I thought I had
better get up and check. I was able to rewind the video and we saw all 5 of the
chicks leave the box in 1 minute!! We didn't have the volume on because we kept
getting noisy feedback. We rewatched the video over and over and thought that
it was a very 'unusual' fledging. The chicks had NOT done the 'sticking the
head out of the hole' that they usually do before they take that first flight.
They'd peeked out while standing on the edge of the nest, that's all.

So I missed the fledging in 'real time' but at least I have the video. Later
that evening we found something quite surprising, something that we couldn't fit
into the 'event' until I'd gathered more information the next day.

On Tuesday I found that the audio DID record with the video. As I edited the
fledging video to post it on YouTube, I discovered something else which helped
to put the pieces of the 'five fledge fast' puzzle.

Here's the video with the chicks 'jumping ship.' It's only Part 1. I thought
it might be fun to see if y'all can come up with some more clues, perhaps a
conjecture, as to what was really happening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGk5M4S_fEk

No fair going to our resident expert Keith in TX. That's who =I= went to with
the pieces of the puzzle and it was Keith who put them together. And I did get
Keith's blessing to do this little 'exercise.'

Let the games begin...

Linda Moore, Acworth, GA
NW of Atlanta

Are you on the BluebirdMonitor yahoogroup? There's a LOT of conversation going on there about this. It's fun for most of us :)

Anyway, it's a great group, not only for people who have trails, although I think that was the intent.

I will post the story here on Sunday morning. I'll be at the hospital on Monday. My husband is having knee replacement surgery. I had a knee done in 2008 so we pretty much know what's going on. I pray that all goes well.

Bluebird Blessings, Linda...

Linda...

Linda, I'd give just about anything if my four were ready to go. This heat just worries me to death and even though I have an umbrella over the box and it's only in the sun LESS than an hour a day, it's still stifling out there as you well know. I check every day to be sure they are all still alive. They will be two weeks old on Wed. This time can't pass quickly enough for me!

I hope your husbands knee replacement surgery goes well and that he's on the mend soon! I am patiently (not) waiting for the end of your story! :)

Got to tell you what we found that night, what was so 'surprising':
[This is after we watched the fledgling video several times and saw a shadow
across the outdoor camera lens...] We decided that we had better go outside and
check the yard to make sure there were no fledglings on the ground before we let
our 4 dogs out for the night. Two of our dogs have birding instincts. By this
time, it was pitch black (after 9pm). And thanks to our list's researchers, we
know there was no moonlight.

We each took a flashlight and went out the back door, Dave went one way, I went
the other. I headed toward nest box and as I was walking past it, my light
caught something out of the corner of my eye that didn't fit ...I saw something
on the TOP of the outdoor camera. I YELLED to Dave "It's a snake!!!!!!!!!!!!!".
As he was coming to me, he told me to get a reacher [a device used to help folks
pick up things beyond their reach], which I gladly did so I could get away from
the snake. I grabbed a digital camera but I was too shaky to set it to flash so
I don't have a picture from then. This snake was coiled up on top of the outdoor
camera!! Coiled twice or three times, it looked HUGE! What first ran through my
mind was that the camera might be warm, especially since it'd been on all day.
Is the warmth what attracted him? Don't snakes work that way?

I've seen Dave try to get a snake we saw in the spring with the reacher and he
wasn't successful. Where am I at this time, you ask? Halfway across the yard
of course! As Dave extends the reacher toward the snake, it extends its head
and body in the other direction as it tried to span the distance between the top
of the camera to the underside of one of the patio umbrellas. Just like in the
jungle movies. Eeeekkkkk!

Reacher-with-snake in one hand, flashlight in his mouth, Dave's moving toward me
to grab a plastic bucket that has straight sides and a lid but the lid had a
hole in it. I'm screaming "He's going to get out of there, there's a damn hole
in the lid!" and my 'Snake Rangler' said "He can't climb up the sides!". I
finally edge slowly toward the bucket. As I peeked into the it, flashlight on
the snake, I started yelling again "It's got diamonds, diamonds...look at the
head...it's triangular...it's a rattler." We have rattlers in these parts.
I've not seen any, thank goodness, but some of the male neighbors enjoyed
regaling me with stories of them when we first moved here. That and little
scorpions which unfortunately I've seen in our basement.

I digress. Dave took the snake bucket to the yard past the gate so the dogs
wouldn't get at it. He put a flat stone on top of the hole.

It took me some time to get to sleep. Of course, I was seeing the snake
reaaaccchiiinnnggggg out to me. But I was mostly wondering if the snake was
attracted to the warmth of the camera. I didn't say I was thinking logically
that night. I was concerned that if the snake was attracted to the heat of the
outdoor camera which is the same as the IN BOX camera, are nest boxes with those
cameras putting our chicks in danger???

===
That's where my head was that night.

Keith Kridler, expert and nice guy, identified the snake as a rat snake. They can crawl up ANYTHING, they have good eyesight and probably was watching the nest box for days, and can detect vibration. You know what it's like when a box of 5 15 day old chicks start to flapping their wings and all that kind of activity.

Amazing, huh????

Linda...

I've read that rat snakes are the ones we need to worry about in this area. I've never seen one but I'm sure they're around......

Great story, Linda! I know who Keith is though Malinda and yep, he is definitely the bb expert!

That's the first time I've heard of a baby going back into the box. That's good to know.

Of course, I haven't seen the fledglings yet, they're in the high trees with the parents. When I put out mealies and the parents take the meals to them, there's a LOT of activity. I hope that a week from Monday or so, I'll see all 5 fledglings come back to the feeder with the parents.

I am in AWE of how the whole thing played out. The parents did have the babies bail out while the snake was on the ground ("take out meal").

Linda...

Linda, btw, that baby did not go back into the box willingly. I caught it, put it in the box and had already added a one inch reducer to keep it in. That particular baby hatched more than 40 hours after the first 3 and he had NO tail when he fledged. I had hoped he would not try to go with them but was prepared, just in case he did.