Bluebird Watch: OOPS! They did it again
Losing, finding, feeding and caring for your bluebirds in the heat of summer
Eastern bluebirds apparently have no appreciation for a finished piece of writing.
That’s why I am here on a Monday afternoon rewriting what was a perfectly good column three days ago but was held this weekend.
No longer am I just writing about birds on the nest and some ways to help them beat the heat. No, I had to rewrite because those birds flew the coop.
Stupid bluebirds. They did it again!
Four bluebird chicks apparently left the nest Friday, only 14 days after hatching.
The male bluebird, the female, I watched over the weekend. They’re hunting insects and flying from fence to tree to rooftop and back to the open spaces. I’ve been close enough to see, when they flutter down, hover, and drop into the grass, that they pop skyward again with wriggling bits of green or skinny flailing insect legs grasped their beaks.
I’m pretty sure they’re not just picking up insects to eat on their own. I’m pretty sure they’re still feeding their chicks. That’s the theory, anyway. That’s all I’ve got to go on because as a bluebird chick hunter, I am failing miserably.
Where did this most recent brood of chicks go?
It beats me, and my neck is getting stiff from staring up into the trees.
Regular readers will remember my May 1 column about the first nest this pair raised. We found four flightless nestlings hopping around the house—one on our front porch—on their 14th day out of the egg and with a severe thunderstorm an hour distant.
After we put those critters back in the birdhouse they stayed a couple more days before they bailed.
Sixteen days was still a relatively early departure, but it fit with the literature I’ve found on the period that marks an eastern bluebird chick’s transition from nestling to fledgling. The average is 18 to 19 days, the full range—depending on the reference—seems to be 16 to 21 days.
I have seen all four chicks from the first brood on the wing, most recently with their momma hot on their tails. One landed on top of the birdhouse after the new batch of chicks hatched and she was having none of that. She raised a ruckus and chased the whole bunch out of the yard. I haven’t seen the Little Blue Crew since.
The past 10 years of fledgling history at our bluebird box matched the literature until this pair showed up. Most bailed out on their 18th or 19th day. One little survivor left the nest on the 21st day. And one group of four hatched on June 27, 2014, and fledged on their 16th day, July 12.
Chicks have left the nest on the 14th day only once before, and that was with this same pair a little over a month ago.
Now, here we go again with these jokers.
Leaving the nest early doesn’t mean the little ones are toast. They can sit motionlessly and hide very well in areas that aren’t our front porch or the lawn between the sidewalk and the street. They can flutter and hop and get into the bushes and chatter and chirp for help from mom and dad if they need it. The adults can always find them and feed them.
The weather has been in their favor this time around, too.
I do believe they left the nest of their own accord. There is no evidence that a snake or some other predator invaded the nest. House sparrows and starlings that sometimes pester young bluebirds have not been an issue this summer.
Maybe those four hot little bodies just wanted to escape the heat inside that box when the outdoor temps hit 100 degrees? Could be, right?
I don’t know.
As someone famous recently said, I’ve got a lot of theories, just no proof.
But I’m looking for that proof.
So far my final report on this nesting attempt to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology NestWatch program notes, “at least one host young fledged.” I’ll edit the record if I don’t find any proof of survival.
The adults are doing the same thing they did after the first brood left the nest. They hunt and then hang out high in the pecan trees behind our house. I haven’t been able to spot the little ones with them up there, but I wasn’t able to spot the last bunch either.
That first evening when I discovered the empty birdhouse when all was silent, I admit I did think the worst for a few minutes. The place felt abandoned and I was hearing every kind of bird song other than bluebirds.
Then I did the math on the number of days and I just laughed. What is it with these guys and the 14th day?
I have a couple of tools to help me keep an eye on this crew. I have an app on my phone called iBird Pro that contains excellent songbird audio. If I click on “Greeting whistles” or one described as “Turalee and chatter calls” the adults will typically sound off if they are anywhere nearby.
That evening, the adult male immediately answered from somewhere high in the pecan trees. The female sounded off as well, and I saw her fly from one tree to another, up high. They were in the same places they went when their first batch fledged.
I’m also using bait, sort of.
Near the birdhouse I have a birdbath I keep clean and filled and I have a feeder that contains crushed eggshells as a source of calcium. The calcium is supposed to help the hen regain what she’s lost in producing eggs. Farmers use similar supplements with chickens.
I also spent $17 on 1,000 live mealworms at Wild Birds Unlimited. They keep in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks in a relatively dormant state but come right back to life when they warm up.
My Lab Whiskey eats eggs almost every day. I keep and rinse the eggshells and keep them in a bag until I want some for the birds. Some I just pound with a rolling pin in a bag. For these, I shot them down to a sand-like powder with a few seconds in a Nutri Bullet blender.
I have been mixing in about 30 or 40 live worms with the ground eggshells to put out at mid-day each of the past 12 days or so. The easy food source allowed the adults to stay in the shade and meant they didn’t have to spend as much energy hunting food for the chick—and to feed themselves—during the hottest period of the day.
I’ve said before that I’m all-in for the bluebirds this nesting season. The local population had a rough time during the big freeze in February of 2021 and is in recovery mode. If our pair can produce eight more this summer, that would be super.
I’m just not sure of their fate at the moment. Is it possible my supplemental feeding allowed those chicks to grow faster and fledge that much sooner? That’s another theory.
I’m going to keep putting out those worms so the adults keep coming to the yard mid-day, and I’m going to keep trying to catch a photo of those chicks. In a few days, the chicks might accompany their parents to the feeder. We’ll see.
