Nesting Time
A few weeks ago, a mother house finch decided to make her nest in the entry-way to our home. It was carefully created, complete with unique lichen skeletons as well as various twigs and pine needles. I was so excited and hopeful that there would soon be babies and I would be among the lucky to witness their growth from nestlings to birds. However, I never knew that the complete cycle lasts only a few short weeks.
After about 10 days of discovery, my husband mentioned he saw a few new feathers up in the nest and suspected the eggs had hatched. I was so excited to view them, but since the nest was up high, it was a bit difficult to get a good look. Throughout the day, I kept trying to sneak a peek and once I saw them, my heart melted! 5 baby house finches with spindly little feathers, large yellow mouths and black beady eyes were starting back at me. I immediately grabbed my camera, my 70-200mm lens and tried to get a good shot. Not wanting to disturb them and scare the mama off, I tried to capture a shot through the window in my front door. I was successful, but had desperately wanted to get closer.
Days passed and I was able to watch from time to time as both parents came to feed their eager young. Throughout the day, I saw the babies ruffling their new feathers and finally felt it was safe to capture a closer shot with my beloved macro 60mm lens. I tried to be quick, as I didn’t want to scare them off and had an added challenge of my ladder being too short and the nest too high to capture a view from above. So, I decided to try out the live-view feature and was pretty happy with my results.
They say finches only stay in the nest for about 14 days from which they hatch. That was right on target. Last Saturday morning as I was leaving the house, I watched as they flew off one by one. It was bittersweet–being so proud of them flying on their own, yet sad for them leave. I really enjoyed the short time I had watching them grow and feel so lucky to have been able to witness such a special event.