Empty Nest

Swallow perching near birdhouse waiting for fledglings to fly

Suffering from empty nest syndrome... The tree swallow babies all flew out of the nest on the same day one after the other, a few hours apart. And I guess it's 'Murphy's Law' that  it seems to happen whenever  you are not looking! LOL!  The fledglings were 20 days old (2 were only 19 days). They hatched on June 12 and June 13 (2011) and they left the nest at various times on July 2nd.

We actually only saw baby # 5 leave.  (The other four exits, we have on video from inside the nest.)
We were watching from the kitchen window and I got one last photo of baby #5's little head sticking out of the opening in the birdhouse. Just as I changed the camera setting to 'video', the little fledgling zoomed out! Rats, missed it!  It is so eerie now to look at the messy remains of the empty nest. I was hoping that maybe a late nesting bird might take over this prime real estate, since we had a few birds peeking in at
the premises before it was vacant, but so far nothing.

Peeking out at the wide world they are about to enter

We considered moving the nest camera to another birdhouse nearby,where there's another family of tree swallows to catch the last week or so of bird activity there, but it would be hard to install the camera at this stage without disturbing the occupants.