Spoke too soon

Looking at the nest box only minutes ago, and it appeared the parents were still trying to feed their nonexistent young, and so I decided to see if the snake was still present. There was a small surprise waiting therein.

surviving bluebird fledgling
Go back down and look at that other image. Do you see any hint of this guy in there? Yeah, me neither, through multiple frames too. But it did explain why I thought I’d heard a peep while outside the nest box, shining my flashlight through the opening – after finding nothing but the snake, I put it down to coming from the mother nearby. Somewhere under or among those coils, however, sat this little sprog, apparently a helping the snake couldn’t stomach. Either that or he fought his way out…