The last chick has another look out - and does another poo! There are now two white blobs beneath the exit hole.
All the chicks have now fledged with the exception of the last, most timid chick.
Again, it is all just too difficult.
As Paul Gallico wrote in "Jennie", his book about cats: - "When in doubt, wash!"
The chick spends several minutes preening in the corner of the box - facing away from the hole of course!
Another attempt to leave - another poo!
Surely it will go this time?
"Help!"
"Where is everyone?"
The last shot inside the box before the last chick fledges.
Away it flies!
It looks pretty good, bearing in mind that this is its first flight!
It always surprises me that the least confident chick, the runt of the litter, is nonetheless fit enough to be able to fly away from the nest box at the same time as the rest of the brood. Clearly, the way the parents feed their chicks seems to give all of them a good chance of surviving. We have only rarely had a real runt which was clearly not fit enough to survive for long outside the nest box.
(Chick 9)
Nearly half an hour later, Mum comes back to make sure there aren't any chicks still left in the box.
She spots the mess on the floor, and being the good Mum that she is, she starts to clear it up!
Two minutes later she is back for poo number two . . .
. . . and another minute later, she's back for the last one.
So now the nest box is clean and empty again.
Over an hour later, one of the adults comes back for a final look.
It has a look inside, but doesn't go in.
So it's all over for another year!
Roll on 2020!