Baby Watch!

Cold by Southern California standards, we humans bundled up to go check bluebird boxes. The bluebirds didn't seem to mind, as there was lots of activity around (and in) the boxes! For boxes that had babies last week (C2) we cannot check after this week because we need to give the birds time to fledge. After the birds have been hatched, we can check for two weeks, then have to wait two weeks so the birds do not fledge early.

R family box: five little babies (all five eggs hatched!)

C1: four little babies (means there were two more eggs laid)

C2: six babies (meaning the other 2 eggs did hatch!) this box will not be checked for two more weeks

C3: five baby birds (all of the eggs hatched)

C4: five eggs (up zero from last week) with the mother and father bird around

C5: six little babies (meaning all six eggs hatched, a large nest!)

To date we have:

26 babies

5 eggs

6 active nests

Eggs, Eggs, and more Eggs

Let's get straight to the updates!

R family box: five eggs (up one from last week)

C1: two eggs, mother on the eggs, this could be an extremely small nest, probably from a young bluebird

C2: two eggs and four little baby birds! hopefully the other two eggs will hatch, these babies looked like they had just hatched. Keep our fingers crossed!

C3: five eggs (up one from last week)

C4: five eggs (up five from last week)

C5: six eggs (up zero from last week)

We should see quite a few babies next week, so check back next week for an exciting report! :)

These eggs aren't for eating!

Eggs in some of the nests this week! These eggs aren't for eating though, and even the giant hawk that lives at the cemetery leaves these babies alone! A normal bluebird ranges from a low of four eggs to a high of six eggs, with the average and of course most normal nest being five eggs. Mother bluebirds lay one egg each morning at dawn until all the eggs are laid. Then the mother sits on all of the eggs at the same time so they will hatch at around the same time.

Updates:

R family box: four eggs

C1: full bluebird nest with a mother in the box sitting on top of the nest

C2: six eggs (large nest) with the mother sitting on top of the nest (these eggs are being incubated which means no more eggs will be laid)

C3: four eggs with the mother and father bluebird flying around

C4: bluebird nest and the male and female bird flying nearby

C5: six eggs

Check back next week for more eggs and for some cute little babies (soon!)

It's that time of year...

The bluebirds are out and active!

For those of you that are new to this blog, we are monitoring western bluebirds, different from their fuzzy cousins the mountain bluebirds or the eastern bluebirds. These birds are deep cavity nesters, which means they like to nest in holes in the trunks of trees. However, because these deep-cavities have declined, so have the number of western bluebirds. That's where we come in. We built bluebird boxes that mimic the deep-cavities found in trees, then monitor them to make sure bluebirds are inhabiting the boxes and not pesky sparrows. We monitor each week to make sure there are no complications and to see how many little bluebirds we are helping to fly out into the world.

We do have activity in some of the boxes this week!

R family box: a full bluebird nest, meaning we will probably have eggs next week

C1: no activity

C2: another box with a full nest

C3: twigs inside the box with birds around, full nest by next week

C4: no activity

C5: no activity

Looks like we're kicking off the season with a few full nests...more excitement next week.

Welcome back to the Second Blue-birding Season!

Welcome back everyone!

The bluebirds are back and active, but seeing as this is the first week of the new monitoring season, there is no bluebird activity yet.

However, we did make some changes to the box numbers for those of you that were following last season. Box C1 was taken down due to a bee infestation, and was never replaced. Therefore, what used to be box C2 is now box C1, box C3 is now box C2 (this was replaced after a bee infestation killed the babies in the box), box C4 is now box C3, etc.

The R family box still remains.

The bluebirds are up and flying around the boxes, but no activity in any of them yet. In the next few weeks, nests will be built and we'll start to see lots of little babies.

More to come

Thanks for reading!