I was doing nestbox checks yesterday afternoon and was checking a swallow nest down at the park. While looking in the mirror I was making sure all seven babies were ok and saw something in the way on top of some of the babies. Just stared at it for a bit and was like "geeze that looks like a little bunny tail!" So I picked it up and that is exactly what it was! A baby bunny must have gotten killed (hawk??) and the TRES found the bunny tail so it is now keeping the babies warm. LOL!

Here at the house our four baby Dees are doing fine, they are on day 13 today....when should I take the wren guard off?? I looked at them for the last time on Wednesday (day 11) and they are still so tiny but have some of their feathers finally.

This morning looked out for the Blues and just knew today was hatching day by the absence of mom when I put out worms and by watching Dad. Day 13 from start of incubation. Waited until around 11AM until I went to look. Found a part of the egg shell under the nestbox which freaked me out momentarily but it was empty with nothing inside. Found three cute little baby Blues and one egg in the nest. May check later today to see if the fourth egg hatches or I may just wait until tomorrow. So I have been watching the parents take bugs to the babies, they aren't eating many mealworms today which is fine. Then I watched mom and dad check out another nestbox in the yard, wth is up with that. Mom is flying back and forth between two empty nestboxes going in and out of them. Dad is wingwaving on the top. Maybe I will get a second nesting out of these two this year. They are five days ahead of the nesting pair we had last year but last year we only had one nesting.

One nestbox of TRES is getting ready to fledge, lots of peaking out, today is day 18.

Went down to the Blues nest at the park yesterday afternoon which still had two baby Blues in it on Tuesday. Observed mom and dad with bugs near the box so they should be ok too, they were on day 16 yesterday so should be leaving soon.

All other TRES nests doing fine too. The parents of the three nests we lost are still hanging around not sure what they will be doing. My sister who lost a nest of TRES babies, cleaned out and moved her box and said they are now nestbuilding, not sure if it is the same pair or not though.

Donna