The Cycle

The cycle

Six biological phases. Round two begins at the first. Each block lights up when its trigger fires.

1. Phase 1

   Nest-building

   May 29 → Jun 1

   Female pressing material into the rim of the wall sconce. Male tracking, courtship-feeding at the cup. Cup read as finished on Day 4 (2026-06-01).

2. Phase 2

   Laying

   Jun 2 → Jun 6

   First egg confirmed in cup at 09:06 PT 2026-06-02 (Day 5). One egg per morning; clutch complete at 5 eggs on 2026-06-06 (Day 9).

3. Phase 3

   Incubation

   Jun 7 → Jun 17

   Female-only. Began Day 10 (2026-06-07) on the complete 5-egg clutch — delayed onset for a synchronous hatch. Ran 11 days; the female brooded tight through the final night (Jun 16→17) and the first chick was out by dawn on the 17th — a few days ahead of the marked June 19–21 window.

4. Phase 4

   Hatching

   Jun 17 → Jun 18

   Began before dawn on Day 20 (2026-06-17). The full five-egg clutch was intact at 01:18 PT; the first hatchling was out by 04:45 PT (four eggs + one chick, confirmed from the top-down camera). The rest of the clutch followed through the day; by Day 21 all five had hatched — a brood of five, confirmed by eye. Synchronous hatch on a 5-egg clutch, a few days ahead of the marked June 19–21 window. (Note: the classifier's wide-frame egg counts undercounted the occluded cup.)

5. Phase 5

   Brooding → Provisioning

   Jun 19 → Jul 1

   Five eggs hatched Jun 17–18 (Days 20–21). One nestling was lost on Jun 22 — worked out of the cup and ejected from the nest — leaving four; cause undetermined. The four nestlings passed the brooding→provisioning crossover (days 7–9 post-hatch) in the last week of June: the female now broods only intermittently and both adults provision at pace. By Jul 1 (~14 days post-hatch) the chicks are feathered and near-fledging — inside the 11–19-day fledge window. A five-day capture outage (Jun 27–30) fell across this stretch, so the late-brooding data has a gap; footage resumed Jul 1.

6. Phase 6 · current

   Fledging

   Jul 2 → present

   Underway. As of Jul 2 (~15 days post-hatch) all four nestlings are fully feathered and have branched out of the cup onto the sconce ledge — the last stage before they leave. House Finch young fledge 11–19 days post-hatch (mode 12–15), so this brood's window runs Jun 28 → Jul 6. Exact branching onset is uncertain: the Jun 27–30 capture outage sits inside the window and footage only resumed Jul 1. Fledge itself is the first full daylight with an empty cup — watch the live stream and the Quiet-cup chart; the finale could happen on camera any day now.