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Abandoned Nest

8 years ago

There's been a nest in my Bluebird box for 2 weeks, but no birds in and out. I've had several hatchings for the last 2 years here in coastal North Carolina, where Bluebirds live year 'round, and many Bluebirds are feeding at my suet. Why did they abandon this nest? No House Sparrows around...

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Comments (3)

parkernicole01
8 years ago
Hi- just left a detailed message with another that they may want to leave their message on bluebirdnut.com, which is a more active site. This may be helpful to you as well. Has there been any bad weather or circumstances to delay the process for them? Once you are absolutely certain that the nest has been abandoned, you may want to clean out the box to give them or another couple another chance since it is still early in the season. Have you tried putting a blade of grass in the entrance to make sure there is no activity coming or going? Best of luck!
Pauline Sterin
Original Author
8 years ago
Thank you, I will try the blade of grass. And thanks for the other site. Weather has not been bad, maybe a touch cool. I'll keep an eye on things and try to be patient.
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do bluebirds ever abandon nest?
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Comments (3)
They can but once the female starts incubating you don't see them very often. You may just be missing them. What you could do is very carefully take a sharpie and mark a small dot on one of the eggs and then check the next day to see if the mark has moved. The eggs are turned during incubation so the dot should not stay in the same place. Even if the dot doesn't move though give the eggs the proper 14+ days to hatch, so count from the day the last egg was laid and then at least 14 days from that date to decide if the eggs aren't viable anymore. I have had a male go missing when the female was incubating, he was gone for four days but she as still there. Good luck, hope you are just missing seeing them.
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I would like to invite you to join the bluebird nut cafe forum. It is much more active than this site and we have many veteran bluebirders that can give quick answers. Check us out! http://bluebirdnutcafe.yuku.com/
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I don't know if mine is abandoned or not. The female is not sitting on thim. The male keeps coming back, frantically entering and leaving. I looked in the nest and there were no eggs so I took it down to clean out. When I removed the nest, there were 2 eggs, one cracked. When I oopened it, there was no baby. They have been sitting on the site for about 14 days. What should I do with the other egg? I put it and the nest back in the box? Was that the right thing to do?
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I may be way off base here, but I have heard of a bluebird pair building multiple nests, but only using one for their eggs. Is this a possibility? It would concern me that the other nest seems to have been abandoned. You can always candle the eggs to see if their is development inside. I did that with my bluebird eggs last year when they didn't hatch on time.
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parkernicole01
8 years ago
Hi Pauline- Did you get anymore activity?

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