Hi Lisa LOL on the mother sitting on the babies. Did you read the post I wrote about how she goes tail up and digs away at the nest like a crazy woman? I swear the babies look like "oh noooooo"!!! as I said like when your mother would come at you with the wash cloth for your face and you would squirm and protest as you got washed? LOL, Crazy yes but it amuses me to think these thoughts! And I have read that they only give the tiny babies small soft bugs. oh no they don't. I saw the father bird give the mother bird a HUGE bug with GIGANTIC wings and she went and gave it to a 3 day old baby! OH YES SHE DID! I was astonished. Then one day (last nesting) I saw a baby with a Looong piece of grass or straw poking out of his mouth. I said to my husband oh no he's choking!! My husband of course so calmly said I think he's playing with it. I was ready to run out there a pull it out of his throat. Next time I looked it was GONE. Don't know if he swallowed it, mother removed it or he spit it out. But whatever it was they handled it alone. Lisa, welcome to my loony little world!!

Anita

Anita it IS CRAZY!I remember you posting about the baby choking on grass! No way they give those babies small soft bugs, I think she tried to stuff an Elephant down one of them! It is also very hard to watch Mom eat the POOP sacks! I have to turn my head!Bad enough they eat bugs, I bet bug poop is very tasty! LOL! Yup this Mom does the stand on her head thing and digs in the nest. I am sure it is to keep the babies below her when she is on the nest but I worry they are going to be on the hard wood floor if she goes much deeper. Do you agree it is more worrysome to see all that goes on? It IS facinating, I do leave it on all day but I have left it hooked up to the TV upstairs as I work downstairs...I would never get my work done. It is comforting to hear them chirping and Mom talking to them. This is going to be even harder when they leave this time I will be so used to listening for babies...I may have to take up heavy metal rock to calm my nerves! LOL

OK Lisa, it's my turn to slap you LOL!!!

Karen

Hey Lisa, I think the mother is actually shaking the nest to settle the bugs to the bottom or something like that i remember reading about. Let me know if your babies flop with their heads back like they are trying to cool off. Today one of them had his little mouth open to try to cool off I think. And have you noticed the little Tarantella dance mother does when she is settling down into the nest? There is so much we could go on for days. One difference I notice between the first and second nesting is that on this nesting the mother sits up on the side of the nest sometimes rather than always sitting on the babies. I guess because the weather is alot warmer and they don't need her body heat? Maybe there is a children's book here somewhere what do you think? Let me know what you see...I'm interested in comparing notes.

A

It has not been hot enough for that, I had to tape up the vents yesterday because we had some wicked heavy rain storms , then it got down into the 50s. I got to the box before the rain started so the nest is warm and dry. Yes Mom has a cute little dance she does before she "sits" on the babies, she looks to just get comfey and then one of them peeps and she's right back up again. Karen, I may need a LOT of slapping through this one! LOL You may have to make another trip over here to rescue me from sitting , eyes stuck to the TV, with me being un responsive to the rest of the world! ;D

LISA, I just watched the baby bird with a long piece of grass in his mouth. HE SWALLOWED IT~~ so that mystery is solved. Heh heh. Shutting off the computer and the tv now.

have a happy 4th!

We too put in a nest camera-today was our first day. Babies were hatched yesterday.
What fun, what worry,--What have I got my self into-I don't have time to watch, but it so fun and so time consuming.
All of the antics that you both describe were going on in our box also.
Connie/SE Lower Michigan

OK OK _ Where DO IT GET a NEST CAM???
you all have me REALLY wanting to get in on the action!!
LOL and you are TOO FUNNY! I love to read these post, you have me laughing out loud for sure!

Mine is a built in camera and I think the company that made them went out of business.

I bought my nest cam through samsclub.com. It is called Wise Cam. If you do a search on the sams club website, you can probably find it. It is a great little camera, complete with sound and infrared lights, so you can watch all night long. It was only $39 when I bought mine and that includes 100' of cord. The sound is perhaps what I like best. I love hearing the sounds coming from the nest box.

Connie, Anita,Karen and Lisa,
Do you guys have wrens in the yard? How did you handle them?Just curious. My wrens just destryed the eggs in my second nesting!!! I am very upset.
michelle

Hi Michelle, yes I do have wrens and sparrows. As soon as I hear the wren's song I put on a wren guard that hides the front of the nestbox from view. You have to make sure that the bluebird is bonded to the nestbox and won't abandon it because of the wren guard. I have never had a bluebird with a nest abandon because of either a wren guard or sparrow spooker. You should go to sialis.org and learn how to make one so your nesting birds will be safe. Good luck.

Anita

Yes I have wrens,
Here is what I do and it seems to work
I put the gourds that I raise up for the wrens-they love them, and as far away as I can from the blue bird box. Then when they have filled the first gourd with sticks I put up a second, and then repeat with a third and a fourth gourd-all in the same vicinity as the first gourd. Keeps them busy.
So far we have not lost a nest to wrens-just the sparrows and we take care of them. Having seen dead babies on the ground twice, I finally let hubby re-move the sparrows.
Connie

Michelle, I am so sorry your eggs were lost. Yes, I have wrens. They usually choose the box by the pond and leave the boxes in the field for the blues and tres. The blues build way out in the field and the wren won't go out there. The tres usually take the 2 boxes in the yard and they have a system to keep the wren from raiding their box.

The tres take turns protecting the nest box. The male will sit on the sparrow spooker when the female is out hunting bugs. When she comes back to the nest, he takes off looking for bugs. They never leave the box unattended. Pretty smart my little tres. The bluebirds do not use this system and I am afraid that if they choose a box in the yard, I too may lose eggs to the wrens.

I have pulled sticks out all spring and summer and I missed a day. Not only was the nest complete, there was an egg in it, so I left it alone.

Again, I am sorry for your loss. I have not used a wren guard, but next year I may have to. I hope the dang fledglings don't come back to my yard.

Karen

I don't think I worried about my own kids this much--
Hubby was up to go to the bathroom at 3 am- no mom. He said she was there at 1 am when he went to bed. Temp. 55
I got up at 8- no mom. I watched and went and checked around the box-no sign of any thing. 8:25 Dad came and right behind him was her. They fed them several times and mom is back on the nest. Why did she leave at 3 am??

Nope, no nest cam for me! A friend gave me one for Christmas and it's still in the box, under my bed! I know my limits and I am sure I couldn't take it! LOL! And I do get to cheat and watch her cam when I feel the need to see what's going on inside a nest box! :D

Hey Connie, maybe she had to pee!! I have to admit I've never checked at 3 am but she was always there at my bedtime. Well, they do say the early bird gets the worm, and it is summertime, so maybe they get up early for the first feeding. I'll TRY to check my nest in the wee hours to compare notes.

Oops I just thought of something. My mother bird sometimes sits on the lip of the nest, I guess when the babies are warm enough and don't need her warmth? Connie, is your set up such that you would be able to see the mother bird sitting on the edge of the nest, not on top of the babies? I know you said 55 degrees and that's pretty cool for July, but maybe they were just warm enough that she didn't need to be on them for a little while? My babies are older but I always just ASSumed that once the mother bird was in for the night she stayed till morning. It should be easy enough for me to check - I'll just turn on the tv during my next wee hours of the morning wake-me-up hot flash! It'll be a good distraction> (Sorry men, deal with it! ha ha)

Hi Anita,
We can see all of the inside of the box, so we know she was not inside of the box. It was also a very dark night-no moon light. Our babies are still very little-hatched on July 3rd-you would think they would need her heat.
She was always digging in the nest-we thought their might be blow worm-we lost a set of babies last year about this time from them-so today I fashioned a nest out of long dry grass (I nuked it in the microwave to kill any critters) and we replaced her nest-I did not find blow worm in the nest that I could see, but surprisingly she did not mind the new nest that I made for her.
Glad you can laugh at the night hot flashes-only way to deal with them.--I am far past that stage.
Connie

It's up to 80 today and yup they are floping their heads back. They actually all had their heads back and were laying belly up at one point. Too much kicking and wiggling going on in there to be in any one position long. A couple days ago they were all fighting to be at the bottom of the pile now they all want to be away from it. They are growing so fast I don't know how they are going to all fit in there by next week! No more hot flashes for me either! LOL I am very lucky I'm only 49! Does that mean dimentia and alzeimers will set in early too? OH wait, I think it already has! LOL

ok it's 1:05 AM and mama is perched on the edge of the nest. The babies are active. i don't know why I thought they'd be sleeping. Will try to check again later. Just got home from the Yankees Red Sox game and kinda wound up!!

nightynight

Ok shoot i fell asleep, it's 4:15 and the mother is gone. Bad mama bad mama where is she?