Babies

I accidentally discovered that we have a nest of phoebes, out in the summer kitchen.


What tipped me off? The rapt attention of Charv. I found him sitting atop the bake oven, and he sat there and sat there... Fairly odd behaviour for a basically odd cat. Until I walked into the kitchen and stared up at the rafters!
Personally, I wouldn't have known one kind of bird's nest from another (more or less) except that there were some phoebes hanging around. Every year for the last few, we've had a pair of Eastern Phoebes show up for a single weekend, catch a bunch of bugs, (I think they like it when the cluster flies wake up!) hang about, flipping their tails, and then they're gone again.
This year, I've seen them more than the one weekend.
Now it appears they're making more phoebes!

In the space of only a couple of days, the little scrawny critters attached to the big hungry mouths have changed; as they're putting on fluff, and the beginnings of feathers. They look far more three-dimensional now, and even appear to be crowding the nest. Good thing there's only two babies in there....

Unfortunately, patient and persistent Charv is still hanging about. Though with good planning, the parent birds tucked that nest BEHIND the rafter he's staring at, so hopefully, the worst he can do is irritate the parents.





And here's a shot of Mom. Or Dad. Just cunningly out of my zoom range. And they both took turns flitting about and cheeping at me, but never staying long enough for me to creep closer and focus...