For years I have always managed to miss the moment when all of the fledglings in our various birdhouses emerged and took flight into the big beautiful world of our Sonoma Valley neighborhood. But this lazy Sunday morning, hearing a noisy cacophony of hungry birds in our backyard, I decided to take a seat and patiently see if anything happened.

At first I just saw the parents flying in and out and in and out of the boxes with grub after grub to feed their hungry little offspring.

I started developing an appetite myself just watching them. But just before leaving to get some Sunday brunch, I suddenly spied a young little critter staring out at me from the box. It looked almost as big as the parents, but it had an unmistakably juvenile face with a yellow beak. I mean if it tried to go to a birdy bar, it would definitely get carded.

Over the course of the next hour, the little guy (or gal) popped its head up and down, becoming and braver and braver each time, and then started sticking its head further and further out of his little hobbit-like door opening. Then it would go back inside to gather more courage. I would sometime see its legs flying around inside as if it was doing somersaults along the walls. I could tell this little bird was ready to stretch its wings.

And you could tell the titmouse was getting bolder by the “courageous” height of its “hairdo”!

And then finally it happened! It jumped!

And then a second one jumped!

And then a third . . . chickened out. But it jumped after a while.

And so did a fourth!

And now the box is silent. . . . But it looks like their next-door neighbor nuthatches are having a second brood, so we don’t have to suffer an extreme case of empty nest syndrome just yet. Phew!

Good luck, titmice!