Blue bird happiness

Working in the garden shed crumbling turf turds, I noticed that birds were coming freely to the feeder about 15 feet from me, close enough to use my digital SLR to capture some close-up images out the door of the shed without the aid of a fieldscope. I took the shots below at about 4 p.m. yesterday, with my Nikon D60, its 55-200mm lens fully zoomed in (still, the images have been cropped).
    I trust that my feathered friend was happy. I was.

Photographic epitaph to four Blue Bird eggs

Click to enlarge

These jade-like little eggs! The nest had been in our Blue Bird house for so long, it was clear that they weren't going to hatch. Perhaps their mother has perished. We'll never know. But I memorialize them in a photograph. [filtered variations]

Young Blue Bird tests happiness

My wife took this photo an hour ago
with her Nikon Coolpix P100

From our bedroom, looking through a Nikon ED50 field scope, zoomed in. (See it with "vignetting" cropped out.)
    My wife had been observing the bird house for weeks as the parents checked out the site and finally selected it for their home. The mother laid five eggs, the eggs hatched, and the parents have been busy feeding their babies. Now the youngsters are preparing to fledge.