The pair of birds took up residence in a cedar bluebird box nailed to a tree in the yard. Soon there were four black-spotted, chalk-to-light-brown eggs in the nest. On a Cape Cod Notebook, Robert Finch recounts how the three hatched Great Crested Flycatcher chicks appeared as a single organism of gray pinfeathers: three pink heads, three beaks, six big, bruised, closed eyes, all respiring together like one beating heart.
When the flycatcher chicks fledged, they left an empty nest, except for the one remaining unhatched egg. With its delicate markings, it seemed like a token gift, deliberately left by the birds.
Audio essay posted above.
