Sorry to hear your male is missing tobygirl. Don't give up on him after 3 days, and continue to hope for his return. But your mother bird can sure fledge those nestlings on her own if he has been lost.

Week old nestlings can eat mealies, especially small ones and you do her a big favor to provide those.

We also provide ours with suet nuggets, raisins, and scrambled egg, all of which are eaten daily by the adults and also fed to the chicks in the box.

Hope this helps.

Best luck to you and your Blues,

Kenn

Here is a link that might be useful: Kenn & Temple's Bluebirds

Thank you, Kenn, for your reply and for giving me some hope!

toby

P.S. - Kenn: I just went back and looked at your bluebird photo gallery. What wonderful pictures - each one is just perfect. Absolutely love the one of the wren feeding (stealing?) out of the dish with the babies. I know she is not nearly as photogenic as the male or babies, but I love and admire the mother so much - so those were my favorites! Thanks for sharing.

Sorry for your troubles. Waxworms crickets and berries are also good choices to provide some variety. Mealworms can be calcium depleting if that makes up the bulk of the diet. You can buy calcium powder at pet stores to roll the mealworms in. I havr given mine wild blackberries that grow around here and they love them. Good Luck to you both
Cathy

Go to your nearest bait store and get wax worms. They are much better for them than meal worms from my understanding. I always offer wax worms when the weather is bad and bugs are scarce. I have read they are more nutritional, higher in fat and have a higher moisture content. I hope your male shows up. Good Luck!

Thank you for your responses, Cathy and Lisa.

No sign of the male yet. I bought some waxworms at Petco today and a calcium spray. I could have bought crickets, but I knew I could not bring myself to "disable them." I will purchase some berries tomorrow, as they are not out yet here in NYS.

Does anyone know about how many mealworms and waxworms I should be offering the BBs per day/per feeding?

I went through 1,200 wax worms and 5,000 meal worms in a week this spring when we had freezing temps at night and cold rain for a week straight. HOWEVER I am in the woods and I was feeding just about every bird that had babies at the time. Dees, Tuti, Blues, Nuthatches and very hungry Red Bellied Woodpecker babies. I would expect to go through about 1,000 mealies and 300 wax worms between now and fledge time. Be sure to have plenty on had on fledge day, it is always a huge help to them espically if there is only one parent.

Lisa: Thank you for your reply. I have enough mealworms to last. However, I am not finding any sources online for waxworms. Where did you order yours?

This year my male is a GREAT parent(prob better than Mom) but last year's male was a great feeder for 3 days then dissapeared until the day the babies fledged then re-appeared & fed. He must have heard me #@%$##*&%$ him out. I believe your male will show up again!! Keep us posted. Al, Annapolis, Md

Al: I can only hope that will happen here, as mother will need much more help when babies fledge.

You know, our male this year was a real slacker, too - never in all our years of inviting blues to our yard, did we have one who behaved like this one. He never sang; he let the TRES take over his nest box; he failed to chase away a second pair of TRES at another nearby box; he would disappear for hours at a time, rarely fed babies, and never fed mother when she was sitting on first clutch and then trying desperately to keep first brood warm. Those first five nestlings died at one week after a couple freezing cold days.

Thanks for your encouragement. I will keep you posted.

I have had good luck purchasing from Sunshine Mealworms for mealies and Wax worms.
What part of upsate are you from? I am originally from the 1000 Islands area. Right now, with the temps soaring to above 90 degress here in Atlanta, just your post made me think of home!
Good Luck!
Rebecca

Thanks for your response, Rebecca. I'll check out Sunshine.

I live not too far from Albany. My MIL lives near Atlanta (by necessity, not choice) and can barely tolerate the heat and humidity. It must be stifling in the nest boxes for the blues!

Wax worms are much cheaper if you go to a local bait shop!

My single female, also with five, really appreciated the wax worms. I also gave her crickets but that's not nearly as easy as the wax worms.

tobygirl---Off topic--- But best wishes to a New Yorker. The Hudson River Valley- Albany area is beautiful! It's a shame when people hear New York they automatically think of NEW YAWK City!1 (ugh) They don't realize NY extends all the way to CANADA! I was raised on Long Island (Jones Beach)and served "Mother Excelsior" as a NY State Parkway policeman. Best of luck with the "bluebies". Al, Annapolis, Md

Here is a status update on our single mother of five:

The male never returned. The nestlings were due to fledge between 6/21 and 6/23; however, on Saturday (6/19) we witnessed two babies successfully fledge in the afternoon. We could see at least one remaining in the box.

Sunday morning, I watched the mother bird entice what was the one remaining baby out of the box by teasing him with a grub and calling to him. He flew out of the box and onto the ground. He was very small, compared to the other two we had seen. The mother could not get him to fly, and he was attacked on the ground by the neighboring TRES parents! All the while, the mother BB was trying to protect him. (The TRES had also attacked one of the other fledglings on the ground the day before, but he managed to get right up and fly to the trees!)

My husband picked up the little fledgling and put him in the grass away from the TRES and closer to the hedgerow of trees, where the other fledglings were. Finally, the mother got him to fly to a low branch!

By last night and today, the mother has been making all mealworms deliveries to the tops of the trees, so I guess the little guy has been reunited with his siblings.

This mother BB is simply fantastic. What she did on her own with the fledgings was a wonder to behold!

So, that is where we are now. I'm still feeding mealworms and wax worms, but Mother still has much hard work left to do all on her own.

I know how this kind of thing is.

I had 5 nestlings. Mother blue disappeared when they were 8 days old and one died the next night.

Since then dad has taken care of the remaining four. I have given him waxworms and he loves feeding them to the young and obviously himself. They are now 10 days old going on 11, and I know it will be tough. I feel so sorry for him...he's lost 3 mates this season. For some reason female BBs can't survive very long in my neighborhood.
The afternoon is when I notciced him gone most.

I bought 6 dozen waxworms but now I realize that I want to buy them in bulk. Buying online is a tough option for me. Tobygirl, how big of quantity and price did petco have?

Oh so Blue.. I buy 600 at a time for $30.00 at a local bait shop. Bait shops dont put the value on worms birding folks do so they will usually sell them cheap. They dont last as long as meal worms. 600 is enough to get an endangered nest the moisture and protine babies need to survive. (thats if you dont have other birds eating them too). I went through the 1200 (+ mealies) during the same time you lost your first brood this year because of the weather. Im in the woods and I just cant shoo off the other Native Forest birds that I know have babies during these time. So worms for everyone!(except the Robins that I fed cat food), the RBWP nearly killed me $$$$ but I could hear the babies and see the little heads, I made a lot of suit too.
YEA Tobygirl!!!!!!!! I LOVE a happy ending! Thanks for your doing what you could to help!

Oh wow, 600 at a bait shop? I bought some recently but don't know if the shop would have that quantity.

I'm gonna check out a pet store today for some worms. Dad devours the worms in no time. I had atleast 100 worms.

Check out this place for waxworms, if I want to buy them in bulk I get them from here. They are really nice large waxworms....

http://www.vadosbait.com/bait/waxworms.html

They are out of MN, so shipping may depend on how far you are from them but 500 waxworms are only $13.00.

Donna

Ohsoblue: I wish you good luck with your little motherless family. I'm sorry I don't remember what I paid for the wax worms at Petco, but they come in cups of 50 and several were dead (P.U.!). You could always call and ask.

Lisa suggested a local bait shop, but unfortunately there is not one around here. Rebecca suggested mail order from Sunshine, but they were all out of wax worms when I needed them. Donna's link above looks like a good source, though.

I ended up buying online from Nature's Way out of Ohio. With Priority the cost for 500 was $37, and they took 4 days. I blame the delay on the post office. Thankfully, most of them were alive, but you have to get to your post office ASAP. Nature's Way will provide a tracking number, if you request it.

Yikes on the $37 for 500 of them and taking four days. The place I had the link for ships next day I think and I wouldn't think the shipping would be that much to make it more than $37 for 500 of them if the actual price is $13. You would have them the next day then instead of waiting and having some die, they do die quickly in warm weather too. I want to say I paid around $20 for the 500 when I ordered them but I am in WI (they are out of MN) and the shipping could depend on how far away you are. Just send them an email once and see what the shipping would be to your place for 500, they are very nice. I haven't ordered any this year yet but I have for the last several years. I liked them because of how quick they were and how nice the worms were.

Donna

ohsoblue, I was checking out your page to see if it listed where you are located and noticed that we both have the same birthday, Novemeber 16th.

Where are you located by the way? Wishing you all the best with your little bb family.

Linda

That's great news to hear that the mother was able to raise the babies. She is a very hard-working mother!