Jan,he's really cute and so little. I can't imagine having him riding around on the vacuum cleaner.What ever happened to him? I raised a baby robin once and when I whisteled,he would fly out of the woods and land on my head. That lasted for about a week and then he was gone. Birds are so sepcail..aren't they?

OMG, Evelyn! If you knew how many baby mockingbirds I hand fed while working at Audubon, you'd die! People would bring in baby birds all day long, and you couldn't convince them to leave them alone, so my job was to take care of them and get them prepared to be released back into the wild later on. One of the reasons we do not encourage people "rescuing" the baby birds is that there comes a time when the bird has imprinted so strongly on the parent bird, it will not take food from a person. You can cram it down their throats, but it will just sit in the crop area and not be digested. So removing them from the parent's care is often a death sentence. Now if a whole nest comes down (like during a storm) sometimes there is no recourse but to rescue them and try to feed them. And I know techniques have improved GREATLY from the days I was involved in bird rescue. So the odds might be better now. But lordy, lordy...I must have handraised at least 200 baby mockingbirds in a couple years time. Not to mention jays, grackles, thrashers, titmice, and maybe 1,000 mourning doves! (My least favorite baby birds of all time.) Anyway, your picture is a trip down memory lane for sure. Saintp, the length of time it takes an egg to hatch varies from species to species, but usually it is not very long. A week or ten days, often. I'll see if I can find out about bluejays. I don't remember. Maybe I never even knew. But the info is probably out there somewhere. Will get back to you later. Marcia

Oh my....I feel like I live in an autobahn society research center! lol. We have so many birds this year...more than we have ever had before. Tons of Barn Swallows! Remember early in the spring when I complained they were nesting on the neighbors front porch and trying to nest on my patio? Well we didn't allow them to nest here but they were not all raised on my neighbors porch either...lol. There are so many of them. And I am hoping we are having Purple Martins as some of our black birds...there are a couple of Martin houses a few houses down. And Grackles fly through often....I run them off each time I see them as I just hate those loud obnoxious birds. Sparrows have taken over my yard. I plan to plug or remove the bird houses I have on my fences when they are done with them....the population of sparrows is just too high in my yard. Each time I go out there is loud constant chirping out there coming from every part of the yard and sparrows all over the place. Those fledgling sparrows are so loud-mouthed...hahaha. I have been seeing a type of bird and I have no idea what it is. It is sort of large..larger than a Robin, has a yellow breast and a sort of olive green back with white cheeks. I have been all through my bird book and several times on a great bird I.D. site on the net but have still not been able to identify this bird. I have seen one or two in my yard and one in my mom's courtyard area yesterday as well, which is a few blocks from me. I am waiting for a better and closer look at one so I can identify it better. Each time I see one I don't have my binoculars handy. We have some robins and mockingbirds who pass through also. And occasionally a mourning dove. I have not been able yet to attract Cardinals to my yard. I had a pair of them visit a few times a couple of weeks ago so went and bought a new bird feeder and some black sunflower seeds only have them leave. I really want to attract cardinals as they are my fav bird. I saw a hummer on my calabrochoa a few days ago...but I have not seen any visiting my odd little feeders I put out after we lost our kitty. They are stakes which I put in the ground and have a small feeder with a large pink flower on them...lol. If the birds are coming to them I have not seen them yet. One thing I can say for sure...I don't seem to have a high mosquito population right now with all the birds I have flying around. But I am hoping that will continue to be true after all this rain we have gotten now. I thought I heard wrens around my back fence a few days ago...but didn't see them. I also love wrens and I have wondered what has happened as we normally have quite a few. The neighbors pigeons still fly around on and off all day. And I found out that the 'OWL' I called "our neighborhood owl" is not an owl at all...it is the sound a Mourning Dove makes. Dad taught me to "blow my fist" when I was a child to make that sound and I have thought all my life it was an owl sound....lol. NOT! Still learning-although much more slowly-at over 50...lol. G.M.

I haven't seen a parent on the nest in the last 2 or 3 days, but it may be that the parents are being extra careful not to reveal the location of the nest. Yesterday I was watching the tree from about 40-50 feet away, and I saw a mourning dove sitting at the top of my neighbor's roof not far from the nest. After about 10 minutes, I thought maybe the dove was waiting for me to go away. So I walked around the far side of my house, and from my back deck, I could see that same place on my neighbor's roof -- and no dove. I got down off the deck and started walking toward the nest on the near side, and I heard that flying-up sound that mourning doves make, from the direction of the nest. And this morning I saw a pair of mourning doves loitering in my driveway in front of the garage, about 35 feet from the nest. That's as close as I have been able to confirm that the parents are still visiting the nest. I would like better assurance, since mourning doves are commonly in the area to visit under my bird feeders. I cringe to think that they are abandoned, cold, hungry, and dehydrated. But I also hestitate to interfere. - Jim