The final peep-show

Being busy preparing our summer science club, I have not written about our nest box since the tragic, yet natural events taking place almost two weeks ago. After loosing three young ones the parents managed to rear the four chicken left, and they all survived until they could leave the nest. They grew remarkably fast, although there were huge differences between them. The two birds sitting closest to the box opening seemed to get more food than the modest ones at the back of the nest, and they were obviously developing at a different pace. As soon as they got feathers they started polishing them and flap their wings.

Last week the big ones started peeping out the hole, clinging onto the wall, flapping their wings or simply standing on eachothers heads. And Friday the two bold ones were gone, leaving the two minors to guard the nest. Next morning they too had flown the nest, and fortunately we got takes of these two nestlings trials and successful escapes. The last three days (22/6, 21/7) of film is now finally up at our website, but we still have hours of raw footage to edit of the days prior to the 21st.

Next year we intend to copy this attempt, and do some improvements to the nest box to get better live and still pictures. But we will not, even if it was a fun project, copy a Norwegian bird show from 2003. A Norwegian guy called Sten Magne Klann made a number of nest boxes decorated in a special manner, and took some adorable art shots of them. The photographs ended as an exhibition at Bogstad in Oslo called "Piip-show". A web-based version was also launched, and got huge hit rates both from Norway and the rest of the world.