Day 9--A day in the life of the Black Phoebe family

Day 9-(actually yesterday--it wasn't bad enough I was still behind from writing comments but I got a virus in my computer and have had big problems editing pics). I dropped by in the morning to check on the Black Phoebe family and after a short time I heard their distinctive calling ("tsip" but often sounds like "seep" or "sip" to me). The fledglings were for the first time away from water--they were perched on a limb on top of a pile of old tree limbs. Was I surprised to see 4 Black Phoebes sitting next to each other on this limb and they all looked like fledglings, how could that be? I wasn't sure as they were more than 150 feet away in the shade and before I could get my scope on them a 5th Black Phoebe flew in and fed one of the fledglings then 2 birds flew off!

This not-so-great pic shows 3 Black Phoebes, all fledglings, that were left perched on that limb. I sat in my car watching for either of the other two Black Phoebes to return in hopes I could see if the 5th bird was a fourth sibling or the other parent. After 20 minutes with no action, I gave up with plans to return in the later afternoon. SeEtta