One short life

In a previous post, I had been wondering how the catbirds had made out with their nesting.  I hadn't seen any juveniles at all, which made me wonder.  Then today I came home and found one -- dead, in the middle of my patio.  It wasn't obvious why it had died, or how it had been killed.  Normally I'd blame the neighbor's cat, but the bird didn't look like it had been mauled in any way.  So it's a bit of a mystery.

It's sad, of course, but mortality is high among juvenile birds.  And if this one successfully fledged, there might well be others.  They're probably pretty retiring, though.

In happier news, the chickadees in the birdhouse seem to be doing well.  The parents are frantically busy, as the parents of all newborn birds must be. No caterpillar in my yard is safe for the next few weeks at least.

Nesting chickadees

We've had a birdhouse up for years now.  One of the kids made it at some point, and with a few modifications, it's been up ever since.  But this is the first year that it's actually been used by anything.  In the past, I've seen chickadees check it out, but it didn't seem like it was to their liking.  This year, though, we've finally got a pair nesting there.  The eggs must have just hatched, because yesterday I saw one of the parents carting off what could only have been a bit of eggshell.

All the other local birds seemed to have fledged their young by now.  The juvenile cardinals and robins have been more or less on their own for weeks now.  It seemed like a particularly successful year for the cardinals.  As to the catbirds, I can't be sure.  I saw the two of them collecting nesting material at one point, but never could pinpoint the nest.  I still see the adults around, but as to any offspring, I couldn't say.