In the meanwhile, Miss Richardson sent me a picture of her new arrivals. She's thinking sparrows.
Well, we are still waiting for the bluebird eggs to hatch!!! We noticed eggs on April 22nd. It is supposed to take about 13-14 days from the last egg laid. That makes us about 3 weeks late!!!! It makes me wonder if something happened along the way and we got a new set without knowing it... The mother bird is still sitting on them as she is flushed from the box every time we go out. The last time I went by myself and she was poking her beak out of the box (see picture). I think this is a hopeful sign.
In the meanwhile, Miss Richardson sent me a picture of her new arrivals. She's thinking sparrows.
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Things have been pretty status quo. We continue to wait for our bluebird eggs to hatch. We did notice that over the little cold spell we had the bluebirds added some nesting material to the top of their eggs. We were a little nervous that another kind of feathered friend was trying to build on top but just today Mrs. Parker went out to check the box and a mother bluebird was flushed from the nest. All eggs were safe and sound. In the meanwhile, RL, sent some pictures of a pair of geese and their goslings that are living near their home. In addition the L Family was up in Philadelphia and people were watching the hawks that had recently hatched. Mrs. L. send the link to the webcam along with a webcam from a Bald Eagle nest. Hopefully this will help pass the time as we wait for our blue friends to hatch :) Franklin Institute Hawk Nest: http://www.fi.edu/hawks/ Bald Eagle Nest: http://www.ustream.tv/mneaglecam Checking the boxes! Who was more surprised? Us? Or the bluebird? Box 1: Whoa! That bluebird flew right out of the box and past our faces! And? Eggs! Woo hoo! Five little blue eggs! We also heard a Northern Cardinal and we had a visitor... Box 3: We hope something hasn't taken over the bluebird nest! Box 2: Still nothing, which stinks because other people's boxes have nests. I wonder why we don't have one? Box 3: Today we saw that there was a nest with some unidentified green leaves layered on top of the nest. Sadly there were no eggs. The nest was made of small twigs. That's about all we saw and noticed. Box 4: FINALLY SOMETHING!!! Here's the scoop. We opened up the box, expecting nothing, but inside was a nest made of straw and "fuzz". Inside were 3 white eggs with brownish, orange-ish specks. We can't take out the nest because it might be another native bird's nest. It is illegal to mess with it. Yah!!! Finally! Sorry for the delay in posting. What with our MSA testing and Mrs. Parker getting the flu, we were out of commission for awhile. This is what we found April 9th... Box 1: Yaaaaaa hooooo! There is a nest in box 1!!!!!! Box 2: Still no progress which is disappointing! Box 3: A nest!!! Finally some action! No birds or eggs, though. Box 5: I'm not the usual box checker but when I checked it the door was wide open. No next. JD Here are the two nests we have... are they bluebird nests?
Box 1: Oh look! It's nothing. With a side of nothing, with a little bit of nothing on top. But we did get some cool pics of the empty house. Box 2: To put it simply, there was zero activities. Box 3: Nothing, just a nest. Box 4: Still nothing. You're probably getting bored reading about our box so here's a joke: What bird is a superhero? A: Robin! Box 5: What is going on!?! No birds, nada, zip, zero, absolutely nothing! Only some gross brown guck, again! :( Bluebirds love a bird house that sits on the edge of a forest section with a wide open field before them. It let's them swoop into a feeling of safety Box 1: Not again! Nothing happened today! The box was empty. Box 2: There has been barely any progress and it looks kind of the same. Also I wish something interesting would happen. Box 3: The last egg is gone. We don't know what's eating them but it's gone. There were no alive birds near or inside the box. Side note from Mrs. Parker: I just found some information on http://www.sialis.org/predatorid.htm for possible predators: Mice (Peroymscus spp. or Microtus spp.) Mouse nest (box filled with grass, leaves, scraps of paper and cloth, feathers, fur) in box, mouse leaps out of box when opened, eggs eaten or missing, chewed (esp. legs and wings) or dead nestlings. May not eat eggs and just usurp box. Strong ammonia smell after roosting during winter. Leave box open or plugged in winter. Remove nests. Add predator guard. Take care of Hanta Virus - do not breath dust or detritus from box! Snakes, esp. Black Rat (Elaphe obsoleta). Garter snakes. Nest intact, but usually all (possibly some) eggs (egg numbers go down and up over time) or nestlings (esp. unfeathered, and those near fledging) suddenly gone, female missing, or parents still around, snake found in box. No traces of eggs shells or nestling remains. MAY find snake feces (little round or egg-shaped balls with tightly compressed hair or feathers, usually smaller than a bluebird egg.) Esp. in South, and areas where mice are common and near wood edges, and boxes without snake-proof guards or on fence rows. (Large snakes can get over 24" diameter cone guards) Rat snakes may prey on nests day or night. Use a stove pipe baffle/Kingston Guard or Krueger Snake Trap, or a five foot length of 4" PVC sitting in a one foot diameter circle of clean sand. Keep grass and brush trimmed around pole. More. Box 4: We found nothing inside, there was not even straw! Our group was mildly disappointed, but we are ready for the next time! Also, hopefully there are eggs we will be able to watch! Box 5: Our little friend was no where to be found just a little gunk. We split into groups, each taking responsibility for each box and the data we will send to the Ornithology Lab at Cornell University. Box 1: Gosh dang it! Nothing. Nothing happened. Box 2: Well nothing exciting has happened in Box 2 so far. Except a bit of unknown scat (unsure), the box was empty. Box 3: In box 3 the eggs dropped from 3 to 1. It was very sad to see eggs gone. Let's give a moment of silence for the last egg (JD named it Nemo)... But we are happy that one egg is still standing. Box 4: We were so exited to open the box but inside there was NOTHING! NOTHING AT ALL. We were devastated. Why couldn't we have been assigned to a better box? Box 5: Unfortunately, our little friends, the bluebirds, nest was no where to be found. All that we found was a "guck" but I do wonder what happened to our other little friend, Mr. Mouse. We've been learning several things about monitoring bluebird boxes. We learned to not approach the box directly in front of the hole to the box. A bird leaving the next could run into you:( Approach quietly and knock on the side to let them know we are there. We like to remember that we are visiting them in their home!!! In EARLY spring, you should clean out the old nests in case pests are living in there. We made sure we spread the old nests out and far away so that predators wouldn't know bluebirds lived there. We had TWO surprises: we had four eggs in Box 3 and a mouse living in Box 5. DG, RL, GC, and TN made sure the mouse of safe but evicted from the bluebird house. Today we started our group, The Young Ornithologists. Although we will be monitoring our bluebird boxes in the spring, we started out by learning how to spot birds in our "backyard". We are hoping to participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count hosted by the Cornell University Ornithology Lab. Some things we learned: It is hard to identify birds on the fly! Look at it's color and where it is (on the ground, in a tree). Compare it to a tree branch or something in its habitat. Compare it's body parts to itself. Turn the beak in your mind and see if it was longer or shorter than where the eye is. Look for identifying marks. |
AuthorWe are a 5th grade group of students who happen to be interested in birds. Check out our blog every week to see what we discover in each box. Each group will give you an idea of what has been going on from week to week! Stay tuned! Archives
June 2013
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