Last night, I went to a local park to take a short hike and some pictures.

As I was walking through the parking lot, this guy who works there was getting into his car.

“You taking pictures of birds?”
“Not really — I can never get close enough.”
“Do you want to take pictures of some bluebirds?”
“Sure, but I doubt they’ll sit still for me.”

At which point, he abandons his car (with his wife sitting in the passenger seat, bless her heart) and leads me into the middle of a big overgrown field.

“I keep birdhouses all over this place. They’re ugly so that nobody steals them.”

As we’re walking up to this small wooden birdhouse, the mother bird flies away.

“It’s okay. She’ll come back. People are worried that she won’t, but she always does.”

He pulls out a screwdriver and opens the side of the birdhouse, revealing this nest filled with baby bluebirds. He even puts his hand in to adjust the nest so that I can get a good shot.

“Don’t use a flash. It’ll scare them. They can’t see yet, but the flash still scares them.”

He tells me that the mother lays one egg a day until she has about 5 in the nest, then she will sit on them for a week (I think). All of the eggs hatch on the same day, and will be in the nest for 18 days. After that, they fly out, usually resting in a nearby bush.

These little bluebirds have two more weeks in the nest, according to the man, so I think they’re 4 days old.