The Spotted Towhees Eggs Hatched

They've hatched!

I went down the path in our backyard  yesterday to pick up the trail camera so we could move it to a new location.  As I approached the brush with the spotted towhee nest we wrote about two weeks ago, I couldn't resist taking a quick peek to see if the eggs were still there, or if they had hatched.  I pulled back the brush just enough to see 4 little birds with mouths wider than their heads, as still as statues and starring back up at me.

I let the brush settle back in place and quickly scurried off to retrieve the trail camera.  I was ecstatic. We had not scared off the mother bird as we had feared a couple of weeks ago.  She had returned to the nest and continued to incubate the eggs.  Not only did she finish incubating, but these little guys look very well fed, and perhaps almost ready to fledge.  Another generation of critters for our neighborhood.

This is how the nest looked 18 days earlier.

Since they look so healthy, and since it appears the mother cannot be scared off that easily,  I decided to take another photo for this blog. I got my camera ready, and as I went back up the path, I stopped for a moment, pulled back the brush again and took a couple of quick pictures. The best ones are  here.

We can't wait to see the babies take flight and, hopefully, make their way up to our bird feeder. To be continued....