Today is the day on which we thought that the three well developed chicks
would fledge. We hope that if Scrap is left alone the parents will still look
after him. We had another bird we called Scrap two years ago, but one of his
siblings stayed with him that time. If you read our 2003 diary from Thursday 5th
June you will be able to read about the strange fledging behaviour that year -
with chicks leaving after 20, 22 and 24 days.
 This
was our first intimation that the chicks might go today. One of the
chicks jumped up to the exit hole and stayed there for quite a long time.
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 It
even tried a bit of wing flapping while on the hole!
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 Finally,
it turned back to the other chicks and we thought this was its last goodbye,
...
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 ...
but no! Not this time. It rejoined the others in the safety of
the nest cup.
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 Very
soon afterwards, though, it was back on the exit hole.
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 Was this
the last farewell?
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 Again
- no, its too difficult!
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 Less
than a minute later, is it third time lucky?
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 Again,
his courage failed him.
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 The
chick perched on the hole for a fourth time!
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 And
again it was too much.
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 By
this time, as you can imagine, we thought that these chicks would never
pluck up the courage to leave the nest, so a fifth visit to the exit hole
raised no expectations.
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 And
then suddenly, he was gone! The only picture we have of him leaving is
this half image from the external camera. You can just see half the
chick on the far right of the picture.
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