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.