Steve Greer Photography

As the walls in their home press inward, the nestlings continue to jostle for a comfortable position.   The chicks take turns carrying out vigorous wing flapping exercises several times a day to strengthen their wing muscles.    This youngster takes the inchoative of his or her new found strength to climb to the edge of the nestbox entrance to see what is happening outside.   A little hesitant to make that momentous jump, the chick decides to stay in the safety of the nestbox a little longer.

All the chicks’ eyes have now opened and they are almost completely feathered.  They’re now sporting a narrow ring of white feathers around each eye, and their breasts are speckled with gray.

The nestlings are standing more during the day, while continuing to preen and do wing stretches.  Some of the scratching around the eyes could be due to a blow fly larvae infestation.  So far, it looks as though the youngsters are able to cope.

It’s now day 10, and the warmer temperatures have returned.  This means insects are easier to find, and they are bigger.

This is good timing as the chicks are becoming more vocal in their demands for food.  In this clip, no insect is too big for this youngster.  He, or she, is determined to gulp this worm down, even it means being uncomfortable.

The chick continued to gag, slowly working the worm down it’s throat over the next several hours.  And even though there was no way to cram any more food into this chick, it continued chirping for more with every new delivery of insects.

Notice that their feather sheaths have started to disintegrate (leaving a white dust behind) and wing feathers have begun to emerge.  The nestlings are now preening, and doing some stretching and hopping a little to strengthen muscles.

The weather has changed, and with it the abundance of food has dwindled.  It has now been raining lightly for 2 days with daytime temperature averaging 60 degrees.  It’s harder to find insects in the damp weather.  But even with the less frequent feedings the babies continue to grow. Their first feathers have burst from the tips of their sheaths.

Now that they are beginning to spill out over the nest cup, the adults have little room to sit on the side of the nest.  More often, the adults are feeding from the entrance, and only jumping in to turn around making it easier to jump back out.

The parents are now arriving to the nest with insects on average of 1 per minute.  Now that the chicks’ digestive tracts are fully developed, and their always increasing appetites, the parents are removing their fecal sacs (60 to 70 bundles a day)  Both adults keep the nest clean by picking up the chicks’ feces, which are wrapped in a mucous membrane.  The chicks instinctively know to deposit their waste outside the nest cup.  As the chicks continue to grow the parents will take the fecal sacs and drop them in the forest far from the nest.