2023-06-08 day archive chickadees 22 days old

Описание: Chickadee nesting box live stream, SF Bay south peninsula. Six eggs hatched on May 17-18 and the young will be ready to fledge around June 8-9. Feeding and waste removal are slowing down to encourage the young to leave the nest.

Chestnut-backed chickadees live on the west coast of North America, from Alaska to Southern California. They are common in parks and suburbs of the San Francisco Bay Area, where I have this backyard nesting box.

The female builds the nest, starting with a foundation of redwood bark strips torn from a nearby tree and animal fur or other fluffy material she can find nearby. She flutters her wings to form a nesting cup.

When ready, she lays one egg each night until she has a clutch of five or six. When she starts incubating them, she goes outside only to eat and drink. Her mate sometimes brings her food.

After two weeks of incubation, the first egg hatches. Initially the chicks are blind but not deaf. Both parents feed them frequently, chirping to let them know when food has arrived. The nestlings grow quickly and fledge about 3 weeks after hatching.

Spring 2023 chickadee nesting timeline:

Nest building starts: March 30
Night roosting starts: Apr 1
Egg laying: April 13-18
Nest abandoned: April 18

The first nest, with full clutch of 6 eggs, was abandoned for unknown reasons before incubation was started. A new nest was built on top of the old one:

New nest building starts: April 24
Night roosting starts: Apr 25
Egg laying restarts: April 30
Incubation: May 4-18
Hatching: May 17-18
Fledging: June 8 -9 ?

I think the birds are nesting later in 2023 due to the weather -- 2022 was a drought year, whereas this year was very wet and rainy through March.

Last year's (spring 2022) chickadee nesting timeline:

Nest building Mar 4-9: Nesting material brought in up to 200 trips/day
Roosting starts Mar 9: Daytime away, nights on nest
Egg laying Mar 21-26: Daytime away, nights on nest; 1 egg laid per day
Incubation Mar 26 - Apr 9: Most of day and all night on nest
Hatching Apr 8-9: Most of day and all of night spent on nest
Fledging May 1: All 5 nestlings fledged

Last year's (2022) late-season nesting attempt:

New nest building: May 19-21
Egg laying: May 27-29
Incubation started: May 25
Hatching: June 12
Nestlings died: June 24

I think last year's late-season nesting attempt failed because of the drought. There was not enough food to be found to keep the 2 nestlings fed and hydrated. They did better this year with the abundant rain, foliage, and insects.

Video clips of chickadee activity:   / sfbaynestcam  

YouTube channel:    / gchang99  

How to install and live-stream nestcam: https://ataridogdaze.com/science/bird...