Two Oddball Nests

North Side

On the North side, some very aggressive mowing took place for the Memorial Weekend when lots of people come to the park. It may be the mowing activity that kept the three bluebirds in the North Side box from fledging. It looks like one fledged so the other two will go soon. Tomorrow would be better than today. Two were staring at me. I have not run across a partial fledge before. All the other boxes fledged all in one day.

A quick check of three swallow nests showed one full clutch hatched. They were even tinier than bluebirds and buried in feathers the parents line the nest with. The box is on the way to the log cabin so you may see nestlings begging for food in a week from the box with the moss on top.

South Side

Here we have the box saved from ants ten days or more ago. All four nestlings were the same then (left photo), whereas we now have three normal sized nestlings and one runt. Due to the unusual situation I woke all four to make sure all were alive. The runt held on for dear life, grabbing the back feathers of a sibling. I am not sure how parents deal with this. Will they feed the small one after the other three fledge until it is normal size? It has feathers and may be able to fly a little in a week, but will not do well outside the box.

The one sibling was fully aware of me the whole time, two had to be awoken. Here he is peeking under wing.