She is much tougher than she looks.
I made a mistake tonight. A pair of chickadees hijacked a nest box from some Nuthatches a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, I hadn’t seen anyone come in or out of the box for a couple of days and so I was concerned that there might be a problem. I imagined an abandoned nest, perhaps some dead chicks or a parent. So I staked out the nest box for a while. I watched for what I thought was a long time and I saw no activity. After a while, I went outside and tapped on it and listened for any movement inside. Eventually, I stood on a chair and tried to peek into the entrance hole.
When I was pretty sure there was nobody home, I lifted the box down and carefully removed the lid…
… and there she was.
At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. I saw the edges of a nest and just darkness at the center of the box. Once I could see a little better, I saw her tail and her head. She was not moving, she was hunkering down. I thought she might be dead, but something told me that she wasn’t. She was defending her precious clutch with astounding discipline.
I quickly put the lid back on the box and hung it back where I found it. Then I looked at the box for a while making sure that she didn’t leave her eggs. She didn’t.
I am so sorry for disturbing her. If she is going to use that box again, she is going to have to feel safe. I hope that if the nestlings fledge that she ultimately remembers that the box was successful and forgets the brief but serious invasion of privacy that she suffered this evening.