Update on three nest boxes

Bluebirds 

What are bluebirds? When my son was in scouts I would walk around the camp and always find bluebirds with binoculars. The scout master could see "something blue" but claimed he had never seen a bluebird. He did not use binoculars. It is a small bird, a thrush. Like the European Robin, it is in the thrush family, but typical thrushes such as American Robin, Fieldfare, Redwing and our wood thrushes are bigger. As a thrush it eats insects, caterpillars, worms, fruit but not seeds or grain. 

The female bluebird is blue and orange as well, but paler colored. This is the mom of our Box 13 family.

Here are the male and female for comparison. Click the photo for some enlargement.

Young birds have a streaky spotty look. In the fall they often have the orange breast put have a pale color on top where the adults are blue. (Possibly these are females, as many young have blue from the start). They should be fully blue and orange before they are a year old and will nest and mate at one year age.

South Side Boxes

We have two nests with nestlings and two with four eggs. For some reason those females have not laid the fifth egg. At that point they would sit on the eggs and I would know they are incubating and nestlings are coming along.

The Box 13 family is coming along nicely and the nestlings have the feathers appearing in stick like form. The full feather starts to unfold. The bill is still partly yellow but the tip is getting like the adult bill. The feathers on the head are more like fur. There seem to be at least four. They raised their heads but lost interest in me and went to sleep.

The Box 7 nestlings are several days behind.

Swallows

Swallow nestlings on the North side are about the same stage as the Box 13 nestlings of bluebirds, but they made calling sounds as I opened the door, expecting mom and dad with food. Then they too lost interest. They will be screaming for food for most of the day soon enough and not sleeping so much. The tip of the bill again has lost its original yellow and will be a longish swallow bill with a wide gape.