A House Finch pair is nesting in a half-dome wall sconce above the workbench. The cameras have been running since the evening of May 29, 2026, and the journal updates as the cycle unfolds.
The cycle → tracks each biological phase as it arms, plus daily daylight and weather.
Round 1 archive → — the thirty-one-day journal that closed on Day 31, May 25, 2026.
Start here
A House Finch pair nested in a wall sconce — and on Day 38 their four young fledged.
This is the field journal of that cycle: two cameras on a sunroom wall sconce, a daily post built from every motion capture, and the data published alongside the prose. The round is complete — all four fledged on the morning of July 5, the last one off the rim just before nine. Read The Fledge.
The cameras have now been switched off — the last thing they filmed was the empty cup. For how the whole thing worked and what it cost, read The Machinery; the live page keeps the final still.
New here? Read how round 2 began and the morning the first egg arrived, follow the phase tracker on the cycle page, or go straight to the data. Round 1 — a full cycle from clutch to fledge at the same site — lives at birbs-archive.cje.io.
Journal
The round-two log
The Machinery
A technical summary of the system that watched the nest: capture, classification, and publishing on one Mac, run unattended for 38 days — the parts that worked, the parts that broke, and what it cost.
The Fledge
Day 38. The four fledged on the morning of July 5 — one at a time through the eight-o'clock hour, the last off the rim in the 08:59–09:00 window. Empty every clip through the afternoon since. Eighteen days after the hatch, the same day round one left.
Day 37 — Fledgling feeding visits continue
Daily log: 1929 Tapo motion captures, 16 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Sat Jul 4 2026.
Day 36 — Fledglings Fed 21 Times
Daily log: 1799 Tapo motion captures, 7 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Fri Jul 3 2026.
Day 35 — Fledging, Many Feeding Visits
Daily log: 1798 Tapo motion captures, 0 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Thu Jul 2 2026.
The Gap — Five Days the Record Went Dark
Days 30–34: the nest kept its schedule while the infrastructure lost its way. What broke, what we know, and the frame that proved the brood is still here.
Day 34 — Brooding continues, provisioning crossover nears
Daily log: 20 Tapo motion captures, 0 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Wed Jul 1 2026.
Day 29 — Early brooding, peak overnight activity
Daily log: 72 Tapo motion captures, 0 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Fri Jun 26 2026.
Day 28 — Brooding still central, one feeding
Daily log: 206 Tapo motion captures, 1 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Thu Jun 25 2026.
The Held Breath: Three Days Before the Crossover
The pattern that stitches these three days together is not dramatic — it is, in fact, the opposite of drama. It is a held breath. The nest in the sunroom sconce stands at the edge …
Day 27 — Brooding continues, four feedings
Daily log: 234 Tapo motion captures, 2 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Wed Jun 24 2026.
Day 26 — Brooding with many feedings
Daily log: 374 Tapo motion captures, 7 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Tue Jun 23 2026.
Day 25 — Brooding and feeding visits
Daily log: 522 Tapo motion captures, 8 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Mon Jun 22 2026.
Day 24 — Brooding and Feeding Continue
Daily log: 448 Tapo motion captures, 9 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Sun Jun 21 2026.
Day 23 — Brooding shifts to provisioning
Daily log: 361 Tapo motion captures, 13 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Sat Jun 20 2026.
Day 22 — Brooding continues, many feedings
Daily log: 375 Tapo motion captures, 11 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Fri Jun 19 2026.
Day 21 — A Full Brood
Day 21. By the second morning the hatch had completed — all five eggs are chicks now, confirmed by eye. The female broods, the male provisions.
The Hatch
Day 20. Hatching began before dawn on June 17 — the full five-egg clutch held intact at 01:18 PT, and by 04:45 the first chick was out. Days ahead of the window we'd marked.
Day 19 — Incubation continues, many feedings
Daily log: 424 Tapo motion captures, 25 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Tue Jun 16 2026.
Day 18 — Incubation continues, male visits
Daily log: 552 Tapo motion captures, 4 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Mon Jun 15 2026.
Day 17 — Incubation continues, male visits
Daily log: 418 Tapo motion captures, 1 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Sun Jun 14 2026.
Day 16 — Incubation continues, male visits
Daily log: 376 Tapo motion captures, 3 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Sat Jun 13 2026.
Day 15 — Incubation day six continues
Daily log: 471 Tapo motion captures, 1 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Fri Jun 12 2026.
Day 14 — Incubation continues, male visits
Daily log: 669 Tapo motion captures, 1 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Thu Jun 11 2026.
Day 13 — Incubation Day Four Begins
Daily log: 250 Tapo motion captures, 0 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Wed Jun 10 2026.
Day 12 — Male visits incubating female
Daily log: 396 Tapo motion captures, 1 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Tue Jun 9 2026.
Day 11 — Incubation day two continues
Daily log: 709 Tapo motion captures, 5 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Mon Jun 8 2026.
Day 10 — She is sitting tight
Incubation onset. The first dawn the female is on the cup at first light and stays — five eggs, the clock started, a synchronous hatch now expected June 19–21.
Day 9 — Up at the rim
Friday opens with the female upright at the cup rim, head turned out to the sunroom — the in-and-out posture is back. The cycle is not at sit-tight yet.
Day 8 — Curled in
Five hundred and twenty-one motion triggers. The 07:11 PT interval shows the female curled deeper into the cup than yesterday, body arced against the back wall.
Day 7 — She is on it
Three days into laying. The Tapo's interval clip at 06:59 PT catches the female tucked into the back of the cup. The pipeline is still down; the camera is still running.
Day 6 — The morning after
Predawn IR clips, dawn arrivals, the cup with at least one egg in it. The female is in and out, the male comes and goes, the cycle is laying.
The First Egg
Day 5. Dawn. The male's red head visible at the cup rim, courtship-feeding the female. By 09:06 PT there is one egg in the cup.
Day 4 — The cup is finished
The wall-sconce cup is built. The female is in and out of it through the day. The cup is empty. The window is open.
Day 3 — The female works the cup, the male visits
Daily log: 139 Tapo motion captures, 8 with both birds visible, weather and daylight for Sun May 31 2026.
The Sconce, the Snapshot, and the Dead Card
Day one of round-two capture: nearly three hundred motion clips on the Tapo, none on the Reolink, and an SD card that won't take a reformat.
Before the Eggs
Round two opens on the building phase — the part of the cycle round one structurally could not film.