First here are some of photos of the adults that I've taken over the last couple of weeks:
Here are some videos from inside the box. Can you count how many chicks there are in each one? (These files are quite large. You'll need something that understands MPEG4 in order to view them.)
I had been expecting them to leave for a few days; they seemed much bigger than in previous years, as you can see in the last video, and they had spent a lot of time preening and stretching and trying out their wings. Perhaps they were waiting because it was quite windy. The first I knew was when I saw on the monitor that the box looked rather empty - I think 3 were left - and when I looked out the window I saw this little one sat on a seed tray:
He had soon flown off into the trees to join his brothers and sisters, where they were hard to photograph - unlike previous years, where less healthy-looking chicks have hung around at ground level for longer than was good for them. Here are a couple of photos of them in the trees, but since I took these I've not seen them at all:
I was lucky enough to capture the last chick as she left the box:
The camera saves a photo every few minutes, and at the end of the day they are assembled into a time lapse movie.
There is some old content from 2008 on this page.