Wow how cool is that!! Hope they all hatch, that will be one nestfull!! How cute on the Downey!! I have dees building a nest right now, I am so excited!! Hopefully the Blues and Swallows that I have seen will return, I think they are in hiding right now from old man Winter that seems to have returned to our area.

Donna

Ditto....that is so cool...love the precious Downy pics...that little fellow is really sacked out!!! He is one sleepy woodpecker....thanks for sharing!

Are both of you ladies named Donna? Where are y'all located? I'm in Northeast Atlanta.

I hope it's the last blast of winter for you dzyg, it's supposed to dip into the 30's here this weekend. I hope your Blues and Swallows will make many babies this year. I put the wren gaurd and sparrow spooker up right after I posted this thread, mama came out when I tapped, flew up on the phone line and watched me set it in place. I went and sat on the bench by the four feeders and listened to her chatter for a few minutes while perched right next to papa in the maple tree. She went in after 8 or 10 minutes, diving from the maple and almost skimming the driveway before making the last second verticle climb to come up under the wren gaurd.

I've never fed them any meal worms and I don't think I will, They seemed to do alright last year with the bugs and insects they caught.
I just got back from picking up 36 little Better Boy tomato plants from the store, K-Mart, guess I'll wait until next week to plant them. Mama and papa Blue sat about ten feet above my head while I put some water on the tomato plants and when I walked back down to the house I saw her go in and stay untill I got tired of watching, papa stayed in the maple tree making his very faint and contented sounding warble. Anyone care to guess when the first egg hatches?

Chip

Chip, in 7 years of bluebirding I've never had 6 eggs! Congratulations! Course I might have 6 this time but since they nested in a street light, 40 feet up, I'll not be monitoring this go-round! :D

I have dees in a side yard box (6 eggs) and a complete, more than complete, BHNU nest in the back yard (no eggs yet), the box the blues usually use. I've had a downy after them to the point that I finally had to add a reducer to that box. I looked out many times to see the nuthatches going nuts, running around all over the box while the female downy sat inside with her face in the entrance hole!

Your sleeping downy photos are very cute!

Hey Chip, yeah there are two Donna's around here. I am from Central WI, where some years Winter never wants to leave. That is great you have the wren guard and sparrow spooker up and she took to it so quickly. I have never had problems with the spookers but the wren guard last year gave me a little grief but they did take to it ok. I am sure we will have TRES again this year, have for several years now, they are a given around here. There are lots of Blues in the area but they don't always choose my yard, unfortuantely. I have hosted them for the last two summers however last summer I didn't get my pair until the second nesting, we had already fledged three nestings of TRES by that time! We have added more boxes this year however so maybe things will improve, am trying the Gilwood boxes now. Have two NABS style and three Gilwood, then two chickadee houses too. I did feed mealworms the past two years, just love to see them up close but I agree, they probably don't need it.

Good luck with your tomoatoes, we don't have our garden tilled yet. Normally we don't plant things (vegetables)until Memorial Day weekend around here.

Keep us updated on those six beautiful eggs!!

Donna

Hi Chip...I'm the other Donna from east central MS (Meridian) It's been really warm around here..I haven't checked the weekend weather report and just hope our temps don't dip into the 30's, especially with my bb nestlings..

I always have tomato plants in large pots, but they've never done very well...now, I have a nice, sunny location, so I may plant some in the ground...it's just a small garden project but lots of fun and isn't that what we southern ladies are supposed to do??? Plant tomatoes!!!!

Thanks again for your pics and I can't wait for an update..

Donna

Hey Donna, if you have a hole for the plant about the size of a five gallon bucket then try mixing well into the dirt a half cup of epsom salts and a half cup of regular yard lime.
Tomatoes don't like their roots to be wet at night either so water in the morning. When they're blooming, make a V with your first two fingers, one branch at a time put the branches in the V and shake kinda vigorously for two or three seconds to aid polination.

When the air is stagnant and hot then use a fan to blow on 'em for a little while.
Oh yeah, when they're little then stake 'em up til their two feet high then put wire cages around them made by rolling some concrete reinforcing wire (in 4 or 5 foot widths) around a 55 gal drum. Let it overlap enough so you have room, after you cut it with small bolt cutters, to bend each cut wire into a hook. Slide the drum out and make the next one, they'll all be the same size. Use two pieces of 1/2" or 3/8" rebar threaded down through the squares to stake the cages to the ground. You'll have to watch them every day and keep pushing the branches back inside the cage when they start growing out. I use 10 foot tall cages and lots of the plants grow out the top a few feet.

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I THINK they all hatched, a few days ago I looked but I couldn't count them all. The boxwood as a predator baffle seems to be doing fine. Good luck to everyone with Blues nesting!

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I'll clean the fuzz off the mirror and try again, maybe I'll get all mouths open at the same time. I see five for sure including the closed mouth at six O'clock, can't tell if the sixth one is at the four O'clock position in the mirror but I think/hope it is :)

How many days after hatching, do their eyes open, they look about ready to open now don't they?
Chip

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That's mo betta---SIX open mouths :)
I watched the male leave the box and fly straight to the suet feeder mounted on the maple tree 75 feet away, dig out some suet, and fly straight back to the box. I guess babies eat suet too :)

Mom and Pop both with a mouthfull of bugs.

{{!gwi}}

Mom and Pop are very busy feeding the six babies, they are very noisy whenever Mom and Pop bring them food. If they hatched on the 24th of April then what day would they maybe fledge, May 11th or 12th maybe?

I hope it's not too late to sneak up there and take a picture without them jumping out of the box, I sure do want to show you a picture of these noisy babies.
The box I put up five doors up the street had one of four Bluebird eggs to not hatch, the three that did should fledge about the same time as my six do.
The House wren has claimed the box that the Downy was sleeping in, I dump the sticks every day or two. 25 feet from that one the Chickadees are about to fledge, I don't know how many because the box is a small bottom opener as is the one in the back yard which had Chickadees fledge already. The box I put in my neighbors back yard across the street had successful BHNU babies and then it too was taken by HOWR so I go over and dump that nest too. My other neighbors box two doors down is hosting its second batch of BHNU babies, the BHNU in my back yard started their second nest but then stopped for some reason.

Hi Chip. This is day 13 right? You should not open the box after day 13. I guess you get one more chance today, but after that it's a NO NO! :) I hate it when you cant peek!

Yeah I decided not to open it even though I'm not sure what day they hatched and this could be 12, 13, or 14th day. I Just hope all six make it into the outside world and prosper without running into the Perigrines and Red Tails around here. I saw that perigrine make a dive from way high the other day, it's unbeleivable how fast they are.

i was reading this thread with interest. i have a situation where it appears i have 8 bluebirds who have hatched in one nest (thursday may 2, they were born). it may be 9, it's hard to tell. while monitoring the nest in late april i noticed what appeared to be eggs missing from the 3 that had been laid earlier in that week. the reality was that the eggs had been pushed down deeper into the nest and covered with pine straw. the mother kept coming back (may have been another species coming in and covering the egg with straw? i have seen no house sparrows here at all) and eventually she started laying again. turns out, there were 10 eggs total in this nest when she was done! i guess five from the first attempt and 5 after that. bottom line, 8 babies are in there now. i'm putting out meal worms twice a day and making sure there's lots of water nearby in the bird bath, and plenty of shelled sunflower seeds for the parents nearby in that feeder. anyone ever seen or heard of a situation like this?

Jeffhoo --- (Jeff?) -- I've never heard of that before but I'm a rookie BB man, seems pretty amazing though.


My Blues fledged this afternoon, their first night out is one with lightning, thunder, rain, and a tornado watch.


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Chip - What a little Sweetie!! I wish I could figure out how to post some of my fledgling pics. I have a great one of Mom, Dad on the box and Baby perching right on the edge of the hole. Nice pics.

If you upload your pics to a picture hosting site they give them each a url so that anyone can see them.
Below is the code to show your pics, the only space goes between the img and the src.
<img src=>

For instance,
<img src=http://okeba.smugmug.com/photos/171585355_E3MVH-O.jpg>;
gives you this

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Ok, Thanks, Chip. I'll give it a try. --Molly

Hey Okayebay I know it's a little technicality but you didn't but the " " in the HTML command for Molly,"http://okeba.smugmug.com/photos/171585355_E3MVH-O.jpg";, but I will admit I'm not sure whether you would've been able to give the full command with them without the command becoming a picture without her able to see the command.

I think you can let some one see a command if you put a space after the first Keith

Keith - Thanks for the additional pointer. I was working on it yesterday, but I was having trouble getting Snapfish to clue me in to the different URLs for my different pics. My hubby is a computer whiz, so I'll have him look. Although, now that I've see Dave's pics today, I'm kind of thinking, mine just aren't worthy, ya know? I believe you and Kenn also post the same sort of photographic jaw-droppers. Maybe I'll still give it a whirl - thanks for the help!
Molly

Molly,
Ken's pictures are a lot better then mind, A lot of pictures that you see that look good the camera is pretty close to the subject. A lot of people get great shots when they feed their bluebirds cause the bluebirds come to them, or to the feeder that is strategically placed near a window or where the camera is.
cheers,
Keith

Hi Keith, I don't use the " " in my code to post pics and it works fine. I'll post the exact code WITH the parenthesis below anyway so that she can try it with her own pics.

BTW my BBs have laid their second egg of the second brood this morning!

<img src="">


<img src="http://okeba.smugmug.com/photos/171585355_E3MVH-O.jpg">;

which gives this pic
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