The
remaining two chicks clearly don't want to have anything to do with the
silly idea of leaving the nest box. It seems an almost universal habit
for the remaining chicks to huddle together in the nest cup whenever one of
their number fledges.
Again,
Donna jerks them out of this gloomy mood by bringing in more food ... 
... and doing some more housework!
This
seems to have had the desired effect as one of the remaining pair takes a
first look outside.
A
few minutes later, Donna appears to do something even more surprising.
She comes in with food, ... 
... waives it in front of them, ...
... and then turns ... 
... and flies off with it again!
This
all happened in less than a second judging by the time stamps on the above 4
photographs. Here you can see her leaving with the food still in her
beak.
Again,
this action by Donna seems to provoke the right response - a chick flies up
to the hole almost straight away ... 
... which action Donna rewards by feeding the chick the food there!
However,
it is another 15 minutes before the chick finally takes the plunge and
leaves the nest box.
Two
down and one to go. The remaining chick seems to have realised that it
too must leave the nest at some stage.
Donna
comes to the nest box again and this time she feeds the chick. In fact
she does this several times during the next few minutes.
Finally,
the chick jumps up to the hole and gets rewarded by another feed.
And
soon the last chick flies off into the big wide world!
Three
minutes later, Donna comes to check that all the chicks have fledged.
Again,
seven minutes later she is back with some food. She realised this time
that there were no chicks left before she went inside.
"Where's
he gone?"
So
now it's all over for another year!This year we have had success with two out of our three nest boxes. In Donna and Will, we have seen two of the best parents we can remember.
Pity about Della! I wonder what happened to her. And will I find one or two eggs in the nest box in the autumn?