The fourth chick flew less than a minute later.
(Chick 4 - 7:59:05)
There are now only five chicks in the nest box ...
... and one of these looks about to go.
Chick 5 was only 34 second after chick 4.
(Chick 5 - 7:59:39)
And now there are only four ...
... and one of these looks as though it will be on its way soon.
Away it goes. This chick was only 10 seconds after the last one. That is unheard of in an undisturbed exit.
(Chick 6 - 7:59:49)
The gap until the next chick was the same.
(Chick 7 - 7:59:58)
And now there are only two chicks left, and one of these looks as though it's on its way.
There was now a gap of 20 seconds before the penultimate chick fledged.
(Chick 8 - 8:00:17)
And now there is only one chick left. All its short life has been spent surrounded by siblings. No wonder it feels lost!
A parent comes in with food ...
... which it feeds to the chick.
The chick tried to hide in the corner of the nest box. A common habit of the last chick!
But finally, it faces the fact that its future is outside the box.
Away it goes!
The departure of the last chick deserves another picture!
(Chick 9 - 8:02:27)
One of the parents has a look to see if all the chicks have fledged.
One even brings food just in case.
Look what happened later in the day of the chicks exodus. A great spotted woodpecker investigated the nest box.
Thank goodness it was empty!
This is what it looked like from the outside. I'm sure the woodpecker could have reached a chick that was beneath the exit hole if one had been there. We have lost chicks to a woodpecker before.
So that's it for another year folks. Perhaps next year I will have both boxes occupied. And perhaps I should consider making a box which is deeper than my current boxes in order to make it more difficult for any woodpecker to get at the chicks!