A tale of two nests

Three weeks ago, I wrote about two bird nests we had found in the bushes.  One had four eggs and the other had only two.  What has happened since that post? 

Every few days, I would take a quick peek into each nest to see if anything had changed.  A couple of the times that I searched the dense shrubbery for the nest with four eggs, I was startled by a shiny black eye staring back at me.  The parent, a song sparrow (Melospiza melodia), was incubating the eggs.  Then, one day, there were no longer four eggs -- but four almost featherless chicks.  Although their eyes were not yet open, they would open their beaks wide at any movement above the nest. 

Four very young song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) chicks.

Meanwhile, the parents were busy catching insects to feed to the hungry chicks.  Just like the Eastern Phoebe parents, the song sparrows would not approach the nest when we were nearby.  Even if one had caught a juicy insect (as in the video below), it would wait until we were no longer visible before darting into the bushes to deliver the food.

 * To see this video in high definition (1080p), you may need to (1) click "YouTube" to watch on the YouTube website and (2) change the settings at the bottom of the video screen.

The four chicks grew surprisingly quickly and my mother reports that they have already left the nest.  She has heard them chirping from the undergrowth some distance from the nest and seen the parents watching from the trees.

The other nest, with two eggs, had a very different story.  Although I had originally hoped that more eggs would be added, every time I looked there were still only two eggs.  Moreover, the eggs were never being incubated.  It seems that the nest was abandoned by the parents, or perhaps worse -- I had also found signs of an owl in the vicinity of the nest.