Three Bluebird Nests

I dealt with the three mouse nests, discovered a month ago. It takes about a month for the naked babies to grow and be old enough to survive and move on the ground. See the adult mouse and smaller pup in the previous post.

Two nests are perfectly normal, one with one egg, one with four.

All the eggs are near white in all the boxes, but swallows do not have eggs yet (several nests built) and are clearly smaller as well.

The third nest was the odd one. One egg in the nest but two broken eggs on the ground. Swallows may fight for a box but do now break eggs. This is the work o house wrens, which have nested in these boxes at this stretch of the South side last year. They nest more past July than now. But are very possessive of hole nests in their territory.

The North side had the usual swallow nests but only one likely Bluebird nest with no eggs.

At least one nest for Bluebirds

I checked the boxes that had the mouse nests, and the problem is, all had mouse pups in them. So those will not be available for bluebirds. Checking again mid May.

The two brand new boxes had nothing, but at a nearby box, there was one fully built nest with no eggs. There have been eggs in April in a few years, and some of those even hatched and survived, but on the whole, April eggs are a risk of failure here.

Swalllow have settled on who gets what box and have put some grass and feathers in a few boxes. Swallow eggs do not come till mid May.

Here are the deermice that were in 3 boxes.

Migrating shorebirds during the last snow storm

There is not much happening with bluebirds yet. I will check the boxes for nesting materials next week. Meanwhile...in a pond on the North side, not Pioneers park, a different marsh:

We had a bit of snow so I went to see if there was any fallout of migrating birds. In a storm they just land at the nearest pond. Not a huge number of species but some 30 godwits and 15 lesser yellowlegs.

For these photos, click the photo for a larger version:

A bit of video

Clean out and moving two boxes out of marshy ground

I went out there with a shovel again, and as I had 14 boxes to check as well, took the bike, the shovel is on it:

that is a small loop that has no bike traffic. I moved the two boxes back there, as they had been in wet ground for years and tended to tip over. One box is in slight upland near the creek now, with the other one almost by the creek:

I cleaned out all 14 boxes, but there was a slight problem in that three boxes were occupied by field mice. How do I know? I had seen that once or twice before and the mice had left by end of May. This however had a mouse, because the mom jumped out as soon as I opened the box. She will climb back for her babies. They can even move the babies one by one, if she thinks I am a threat. The fluffy cotton will come up all the way to the hole.

I found two house wren nests left from last August. They make a tiny nest on top of the sticks the male puts in:

There were 5 or 6 bluebirds acting aggressive to each other as they sort out the nesting issues, territories. Also some tree swallows were beginning to look at boxes. They claim them but do nothing till one day in May, a nest is all built, feather lined and eggs appear almost immediately.

Bit of video:

Two more boxes replaced

I was not really equipped to take photographs, and the little bit of video I got does not show the birds. But as soon as I replaced two boxes on the South side in the middle, a pair of bluebirds appared to check them out.

The old one is on top, I took it away to keep as a spare, we have boxes that are worse than that. I also have new poles so I may move some locations around. Two in particular are in wet marsh.

The two new ones are shown here, with the female preferring the back one. I will check them in a week or two. I can then report "nesting" in eBird, if there is grass inside.

A new box installed

I got 4 new boxes at Christmas (thanks Tracy) and we are donating these to the park. I am putting at least two on the South side. This one is in the main prairie, number 16.

The bluebirds are around, here and there, but do not care about boxes till April.

Citizen Science

The intense attention to nature that came about from Apps and websites that let you record various things has brought science of sorts even to back yard birders. You can monitor nests. The nest activity can be reported in eBird during regular eBird lists. These are bird lists by your location. If you really want to spend some time with it, you can join Nest Watch. It is free.

The address is:
https://nestwatch.org/

I  did it for one season with a single bluebird nest and a single tree swallow nest. It was too much work for 32 boxes that are 12 miles away from me! If they are in your yard, it is much easier. Plus, I got the same information they want with less work. I know how many eggs were laid and how many bluebirds fledged. If you have bluebirds, look up Bluebirds Across Nebraska to report your results. Only the number of nests and the number fledged is needed.

I do collect data on my boxes, and I have a summary of four seasons.

The birds seem to come up with the same number of success each year. 2018 was a good year, but I think there was at least one failed nest. Some years the expected total appeared after a few failed attempts, so the nesting went to August. I put in a wren guard on one box for the first time, and that pair will raise just one chick.

In 2016 I reported some 60 tree swallows fledged. In 2019 there were swallow nests in 11 boxes, so about the same, 60-65 nestlings fledged. Swallows will delay laying eggs if temperatures are low in May. They only catch flying insects. Bluebirds need caterpillars to feed to the young:

The low number of BB nests in 2017 and some movement of the trail in the North prairie inspired me to move some boxes. So the table really does not follow the same boxes for four years. On the North side 5 boxes were moved to the tree line. I get more bluebirds this way, but also more house wrens interfering with the bluebirds. The bluebirds in a good year can be done in June and the wrens do not nest til June and July. They could share. But they do not and the male house wren will go and destroy nests long before the wrens are ready to lay eggs.

Box 13 (see previous post)

One bird remains (Aug 4 photo) and the bird is ready to fly:

On August 9th I checked the box. Just a grass nest left. There was no sign of the extra blue egg:

The nest is clean. I had one other such a clean nest where 4 eggs had been. In 10 days the eggs did not have time to hatch and turn to full grown chicks, so I marked those 4 eggs as lost.