Friday, July 22, 2016

July Fledged Up To Seven More Birds

South Side

(The number turned out to be less than 7, only 4)
The nest boxes on the North Side by the Nature Center have had little new activity. The remainder of the swallows fledged after June 7, when I last checked them. There were no bluebirds left on the North Side.

June-July continued with one egg to start with in in Box 7 on the South Side. There were three new eggs there now, a third brood. We can just guess that four fledged in that time as they had to wait till now to lay the third brood.

Box 2 had some tragedy with first ants and then the one dead nestling on June 7. The pair laid another brood and raised them in June-July. There were two nearly full grown birds in the box, so up to two fledged without me seeing them, and one left in the hour it took me to check boxes. The remaining nestling in Box 2 is shown here.


It looks normal though maybe a bit on the small side.


Heat


Birds seems to handle heat well. The parents need to feed them all day, as the food is the only source of water for birds. I saw one parent still hanging around at 1-2 PM. They may feed them more as the heat eases by evening  and it is less work to find food.