Starling Cam 2003

A diary of starlings nesting in a flicker box on the side of a house in Centennial, Colorado.

Our fist flicker box was quickly taken over by starlings, so we decided to watch them instead. At that time, we only had the inside camera, but also had a closed-circut live feed camera we could monitor from the in-house computer. Our then- three-year-old daughter named the mother bird "Flickie", and the male "Peepers." When the chicks hatched, they were called "Fluffy," "Birdy, " "Jim-Dear" and "Darling". Even though we couldn't tell if the chicks were male or female, we used the gender their names implied when referring to them.
	"Flickie" moves her egg with her beak. She laid four eggs at about two day intervals.
	The first egg hatches. The baby is so tiny!
	The next day, "Fluffy" is hungry! "Flickie" obliges with meal after meal. In a record year for miller moths, we did not have any problems--our resident starlings kept the local moth population in check to feed their hungry brood! Both "Flicke" and "Peepers" worked to keep the chicks fed, but they are never both in the box at the same time.
	Two Babies hatched--"Fluffy" is joined by "Birdie". Just as the eggs were laid at two day intervals, the babies hatch about two days apart.
	Three mouths to feed--the third bird is named "Jim-Dear" after a character in our 3-year-old daughter's favorite movie, Lady and the Tramp. It was amazing to watch the babies' jerky movements on the live feed camera. They would become quiet and still when the "Flickie" was gone, but we could predict her arrival because the chicks would open their mouths greedily the minute she appeared at the nest hole. We could hear them peeping inside the box. They were astoundingly noisy for such little creatures.
	"Flickie" tends her four chicks. The last to hatch, "Darling", is smallest and always seems to be on the bottom of the heap and the last one fed. Sometimes we wonder how she manages, but somehow she holds her own with her older, stronger siblings.
	"Fluffy" has a tiny eye open. The chicks huddle together in the nest.
	The chicks have tiny flight feathers
	"Fluffy's" feathers are really coming in! She stretches her wings and shows them off.
	Three chicks huddle together, an one stays apart from the group at night. The adult birds don't stay in the nestbox overnight anymore.
	Two weeks after hatching, the chicks are fully feathered fledgelings. As usual, "Darling" is being squashed by her siblings and is barely visible.
	One chick jumps to the nest box hole, ready to meet the world.
	Two chicks on the bottom of the box, and "Birdie's" tail is visible as he sits at the box opening. One sibling, presumably "Fluffy," is already gone.
	A half-hour later, the "Birdie" has left the nest and "Jim-Dear" is at the nest-box hole.
	"Darling," the youngest of the brood by nearly a week, was the last in the box. When she disappeared from the camera, we ran to the door in hopes of catching a glimpse. There she was, sitting on our porch stoop. When she saw us, she flew away across the street to the nearest tall tree. Her father, "Peepers" was close behind his final fledgeling.
	Two hours after the first chick departed, the nestbox is empty. None of the starling family ever returned to the box. On the live-feed camera, the box appeared to be crawling or swimming. It was thick with bird lice, which were amazingly fast to crawl up our arms when we took the box down to clean it.