I have been enjoying using Nestwatch for some time. Their website offers a lot of information and support for anyone who wants to observe birds that are nesting. I’ve been trying to monitor the Eastern Bluebird nests this summer and keep running into dead ends. The first nest was abandoned with six eggs. After I had waited long enough to know that they would never hatch, I removed nest and eggs together and put them into a shoebox trimmed
I have bluebirds nesting in my bluebird house again this spring. This time there are six eggs in the nest. If you read my earlier posts on bluebirds you will see pictures of several stages in the growing process. But I have been disappointed every time the babies fledged. I’ve never seen it happen and the birds mysteriously disappear as a new nest is begun. I don’t know for sure if they have successfully fledged or not. I know the mocking
Eleven days and still growing This picture was taken on July 1 when the babies were eleven days old. You can see the wing and tail feathers getting longer and very blue. They have wide beaks when they are young to make it easier for the parents to feed them. (OOOPS! I should have re-read my bluebird book before taking this last peek. I wasn’t supposed to peek after the 13th day. I hope I haven’t messed up here. Fortunately the birds
The second baby bluebird hatched on June 22 which is unusual. Normally bluebirds don’t start incubating the eggs until all are laid so the babies will all hatch on the same day. Since South Carolina had some extremely hot weather about the time the Mama bird was laying eggs, I suspect incubation began immediately without the parent birds sitting on the nest. That would cause the eggs to hatch one a day because they are laid one a day.
I’ve been away on vacation, so it’s time to play catch-up. We do have a second nest of bluebirds in our birdhouse and it has four eggs in it. I’m not sure when the eggs were first laid. I looked both yesterday and today and the number was four both days, which means she has stopped laying. My neighbor may be able to shed more light on this when I get a chance to ask him about it.
