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All fledged

14 years ago

My 2nd nest of bluebirds, 5 of them, fledged yesterday. The other nest with 4 tree swallows fledged 4 days ago. I am left with 2 very dirty nests, I am so happy. I normally only get 1 clutch per year.

Earlier the 2nd clutch of BB suffered a setback where 3 eggs were pierced and smashed. But the parents rebuilt and produced 5 more babies. The fledglings of the 1st clutch would come for mealworms and carry them to feed the babies all the time. At one time I saw a fledgling begging for mealworm, and then carried it to the nestbox after getting from the Mom, pretty cute. I am running out of my 10,000 mealworms :-)

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Comments (4)

ohsoblue77
14 years ago
Oh wow, are those Western Bluebirds?? The coloration of the one on the let certainly looks so to me.

Congrats on the successful fledging! I also don't usually get 2 broods, but that's because the first attempt always manages to end in failure in SOME WAY.

I wish these species didn't have it so tough. It's sad to think we will probably never see as many of them as we do Robins.

Enjoy the rest of your summer and your successes!

~Tim~
dzyg
14 years ago
Congrats on the successful fledging! This year for the first time I had three successful broods out of one pair of Blues! The last one just fledged on Sunday. So cool you are seeing the first nesting fledges feed the second nesting ones....I have never seen that but have heard others that had.

My orders of 10,000 mealworms go very quickly...last one only lasted two weeks! I have Blues, Dees and Chipping Sparrows eating the mealworms.

Donna
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Comments (4)
I enjoyed reading this tonight after a very busy weekend and want to thank you so much for sharing this. Your birding experiences are so interesting. I loved seeing the little bluebird finally make the leap in the movie and all of your photos are so incredible. Poor little mama bluebird with the hurt leg. I sure hope it heals correctly enough for her to get use from it. She is very unique in appearance and I wonder if any of her babies will look like her. Please keep us posted if you see any resemblance. The high winds have been so hard on our little birds this year.
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The babies are near death! So sad!
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Comments (1)
It sounds like something happened to both parents. There are bird rescuers. Did you read the link on the home page here about what to do in an emergency. Hope it's not too late. I have had a male raise a batch of young ones and last year it was a female that raised a batch. I never have more than one batch a year here in Michigan.
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Comments (6)
Thanks everyone. The puzzle pieces are falling in place. I think that the circling hawks I saw may well have been parents teaching their youngsters to hunt, judging from the calling to one another and the fact that two of these hawks appeared to be a slightly different color and a bit smaller than the other two. I'm feeling greatly relieved to think that the swallows and hummers are safe somewhere else. The hawks don't lack for food this year. Some of the rabbits are really huge and a single one would feed a family of hawks. Last year a neighbor's dog killed the fox babies in the den at the edge of the woods behind our meadow. :-( Needless to say the parent foxes went elsewhere to raise young this year, and this left a plentitude of rodents and a predator niche that the hawks are now filling. Also our cat has grown too old to hunt as she once did and the two neighbor cats are rather clueless when it comes to prey. So the hawks are seemingly reaping the rewards. We have had a multitude of robins this year as well, and they have raised several batches of fledglings. I'm surprised that they too have not flown off in fear of the winged predators, and also surprised that the overpopulation of moles have left them worms to eat. But I'll just enjoy watching the hawks and robins, since they are the most ubiquitous right now.
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Fledging begins; season will be extended!
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Comments (4)
This is wonderful, but I also am wondering about the hatch rate. Those birdies do keep you busy, don't they?
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kendra2003
14 years ago
Are those the fledglings from your previous clutch? What a beautiful picture. Congratulations on a successful fledge. How cool that the first clutch feeds the second.
out_about
Original Author
14 years ago
Thank you all!

I am not exactly sure but since I am in CO I think they are Western BB.

Yah, they are the fledglings from the 1st brood. At one time, 4 fledglings (never saw all 5 them together) and parents were at the feeding time, all tried to bring mealworms to the nestbox, quite a traffic jam. Sometimes a fledgling would bring a mealworm in, then comes out with the same mealworm, so apparently they are not quite a skilled caregiver yet. Below is a fledgling checking the nestbox.

The same BB pair has come for the last 3 years. I know they are the same because they know the where the mealies are right away, even when I place the bowel inside the "jail house" feeder.

Until next year :-)

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