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Are bluebirds disturbed by my yardwork?

11 years ago

I have put up a new bluebird house this year in my rose garden area. Bluebirds have moved in, and they seem to be quite the happy family. My problem is I have ordered new roses coming this week that I will want to plant strarting about 12 feet to the north of the bluebird house. Since I have hard clay soil this will require hours of work. Any advice?

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Comments (5)

Ninapearl
11 years ago
if you can, you might want to wait until she lays her first egg. once there's a egg in the nest box, nothing short of major catastrophe will keep her away.

having said that ^, i am having a room built on to the back of my house. the nest box is a mere 10' away from the pounding and sawing going on. momma blue never skipped a beat. she built her nest amidst all of the commotion and she is incubating 5 eggs now. :)
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mzstitch
Original Author
11 years ago
I am fairly certain there are eggs already, as Mama stays in the birdhouse just about all time. She frequently can be seen peeking out of her box. I comically think back as to when I was pregnant on bedrest looking out my window wishing I were outside! That has to be how she feels, needs to stay with her nest, yet wishes she could be out flying around!
I know many of you pros open a door and peek inside, I'm just not comfortable doing that. I'm scared something would happen with my luck, like an egg rolling out! The other day I was watering my roses and as I walked directly in front of the box Mother bird flew out, and scared me to death! lol.. She dd stay in there as I watered, but waited until I left to fly on back after walking in front of the house.
I guess I'll dig a bit, and if she flies away, I'll just have to do it over a number of days to make sure she isn't too bothered?
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Naked guy in window, that reminds me of a joke. A lady calls the police and complains about seeing the man next door in his window naked, the police come and say, I'm sorry mam, we can't see him. She replies,"You can if you stand in this chair." The point being, some people seem to look for things that bother them. I know, I used to be that way, I swear. But I am trying to work on it these days. Lots of things bother me in my neighboorhood and I'm sure we do lots of things that bother other people such as wind chimes, mowing, terrible and loud karoke in our sunroom, and a couple of kicka$$ parties a year. We seem to get along with everyone anyway. As a matter of fact, all our neighbors come to us with complaints about each other, such as "Will you tell Ms. M to keep her cats, home" "Will you ask that young couple to mow thier yard" and so on. A lot of our neighbors don't get along with each other, but we somehow manage to get along with all of them. One more story. A single lady that lives down the street from us always has a messy and unkept yard. It really bothered me. She had a tree die in her front yard, finally I made DH stop one day and ask her if we could cut it for her, she seemed a little embarassed but said yes. We cut it and cleaned it up. Turns out she is single, slightly handicapped physically, has 3 foster children she has adopted and works full time. She moved to this house when hers burned and her two children were killed. About a month later she stops one day while we are working in the yard, she has a letter in her hand and is in tears. It was the ugliest, meanest letter going as far as calling her a pig. It had been left in her mail box. It went so far as to threaten to run her out of the neighborhood. She was embarrassed to attend the neighboorhood watch meeting and asked us what she should do. I told her that she should go and take the letter and call out who ever wrote it. She did clean up yard, but it is still littered with toys a lot of time. Like some of you suggested we should try to see both sides before we get all outraged.
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dzyg
11 years ago
If she is incubating eggs you really don't want to disturb her as you could interfer with the development of the eggs if they aren't incubated properly. You don't want to be there hours on end working and not letting her into the nestbox. I would say work 1/2 to hour tops and then stay away for just as long.

btw....monitoring nestboxes (looking into an active nesting) does more good than harm and can prevent possible problems. Hope your nestbox is baffled and you don't have any fence/trees in your flowerbed that is too close to the nestbox.
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mzstitch
Original Author
11 years ago
I certainly could wait a week or so, how long does the bluebird sit with her eggs pretty much non stop?
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dzyg
11 years ago
Incubation is 12-14 days, then they will be busy feeding the nestlings which you won't want to interupt either. Once they hatch it is 16-19 days until they fledge.
Good luck!
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