update on this bad boy. I noticed this weekend that this poor thing was not doing so well. Some of the branches started to droop and some of the living flowers completely died and fell off. A quick touch of some branches showed that they were mushy...i moved into action and quickly got it out of the soggy soil and into new drier and better draining mixture soil. i also clipped off more of the damaged branches. Am I too late in noticing its poor condition? is it done for? is there anything i can do to revive it? nurse it back to health?

Yes, Western Bluebirds readily accept nest boxes and there is a nest box trail near one of my study areas maintained by the local Audubon Society chapter. In that situation and talking to the crew that maintains the trail, House Wrens have been documented competing with bluebirds for nest boxes, but seems to be tied to areas with thicker vegetation which one would expect. In my study areas and away from boxes, House Wrens appear to select cavities with much smaller openings as well as natural cavities such as slits behind bark, as opposed to the abandoned woodpecker cavities with larger entrances that bluebirds use. I have long thought that the House Wren's aggressive behavior to other cavity nesters may be an artifact of nest boxes as that is when it is most frequently recorded and also studied. Howeve, more detailed research is needed regarding cavity nester breeding biology in natural cavities. BN

Hi Pam and anyone else interested, After my last posting, we had a very high wind come up for about an hour. It blew some branches and clumps of leaves down all around our area, but no rain. It also blew down a large piece of wood that may have frightened the baby, but for whatever reason, the little bird went back under the fence to outside of our yard, and the parents seemed to keep him there this time. In fact, he quite moved on from being squenched up next to the fence, and I could not see him any more with a quick check, but I did hear him answering his mother, and the parents kept coming back and were in different trees to watch after him. They were actually in the trees they perched in to watch their original bluebird home, about 10 feet closer to the front of the house than they had been through this ordeal in our fenced back yard. This morning when I got up, the bluebird parents were not there nor was he. The parents did come back a couple of times when I was outside and did not seem distressed. They did not seem to be calling to him at all. I didn't hear them sing or call any at all. The trees they were sitting in as I mentioned before were closer to the front of my yard and I cannot see the birds from my back deck with binoculars like I could when they were looking after him in the shed. I didn't want to stay too close to see and frighten him into running again, so I missed seeing if they were going down and feeding him, if they had encouraged him to fly and if he did, or anything at all. All I know is that by about 10:00 a.m. when I went around to sit on my little concrete bench which is about 15 feet from the bluebird house, the mom and dad sat in the tree there where they always looked after their home like they were communing with me. Lol. I did hear what I know was some kind of baby bird high in the trees in my neighbor's yard right next to this area. Since I have not heard a baby bird calling from that area throughout this weekend, I'm just going to believe that it was him and that he was able to fly and get up there with his parents calling him at some time that I didn't see. He could almost fly the day before, so I'm hoping that they get him moved down the block to the little field where they moved and where his siblings are. I hope they bring all their babies back to see me some day the way another bluebird family did a couple of years ago. I'll try to let you know if I see all 5 of the babies some time, but there are lots of bluebirds around here, so it may be hard to tell. Last week, there was a whole family of about 7 bluebirds on my roof for about 30 minutes. Karen

Hi Ray, I have no idea who migrates or does what, all I know is that each winter I see a couple more Blues at the suet log than the previous winter. Also meant to add to my post this morning, the explanation for why this bird has 2 bands. Here is what Nancy wrote - "If I am seeing the colors correctly, he has a silver band (the regular type of BBL band) on his left leg and a white plastic band on his right leg...My report will explain my color banding system (nothing to do with the state I have banded in--merely unique color combinations representing unique numbers so I can identify individuals in my study at a distance just as you did)." Here is another picture of the bands, you can see the detail a little more clearly -