The Next Nest

The first clutch of babies fledged on Monday, and now on Saturday it appears that the mama bird will finish the nest for the next set today. Starting with a fresh, clean house, both parents visited several times before the mama bird started bringing in little sticks, leaves, and blades of grass. She drops them in and then spins around furiously inside, smashing things down and forming the "cup" in which the eggs will be laid and the babies will hatch and grow. She even works as night falls, as evidenced by the night vision shot below. Here are a few shots of the process. 

Fledging

On the morning of their 21st day, the nestlings became fledglings by leaving the box. The first one got away about ten minutes before the other four (off camera), but all five got a good loft and flew a sharp arc uphill to places unknown. 

From there, the babies and their parents will probably disappear for a while (like maybe two weeks?) as they learn the ropes of life on the outside. They are likely to return to their home yard because they like the mealworms there but it could take some time. 

If all goes well, there will be another clutch of nestlings pretty soon, like within five days of this group fledging.This group might already be the second clutch, though, so maybe not. Everything will be ready (the box will be clean) and we can all cross our fingers (like the mama bird crosses her wings when she sleeps!). The parents have been visible by the box all day today post-fledging, but no sign of the fledglings, who can't be TOO far away but also aren't in sight. 

Turning Toward the Door

 The frantic wing flapping got even more intense about 16 days into the babies' time in the birdhouse. But it still took another five full days to actually fledge. 

Feathers, Wings, Features

 Over the next several days, the babies develop really quickly, forming full feathers, wings that they flap clumsily, and features like eyes and pronounced beaks. 

Bluebird Diapers

Monday night was a scary one, as the mother bluebird just didn't come into the house at all. It seemed she might be gone for good. There is advice about how to deal with abandoned nestlings available online but some of it is conflicting. But one commentator said that after about eight days, the babies have enough feathers so that the mother doesn't need to keep them warm all night any longer. Sure enough, in the morning she returned. 

And one of the things that was there waiting for her (see first picture here) was a "fecal sac," which is essentially a poop diaper for baby bluebirds. I was wondering if there were big horrible messes down in "the cup" of the nest, but I had seen both the mother and the father carry out little white blobs a few times. Turns out that this is the mode of sanitation in bluebird societies. The babies' waste is contained pretty neatly, and the parents come in and collect it and carry it away so that whatever smell it might have will not be detected by predators. I was fortunate to catch this picture because the parents are usually pretty quick in their detection and disposal of the sacs (which are a combination of all of the waste products of each individual baby). 

The other pics are just some weird poses that help to show: 1) how far they are stretching to have their own space (?), 2) how much their feathers are developing, and 3) the sparkly blue fuzz on their heads that will turn into feathers soon. 

Bluebird Diaper

Blue Fuzz Star

Sparkly Blue Fuzz

Feather Mass

May 10. The bluebirds are actually starting to look blue today! And they are stretching to the farthest corners of their house/nest. The sparkles from yesterday seem to be developing into stripes. They are making entirely cute noises now too, which can't be captured in still photos so the old recordings of the livestream (follow link above) are the only way to hear.

Five Blue Mouths

Big Blue Star

Sparkles into Stripes

More Bugs

The babies are definitely reaching farther out from the center of the nest, though they still are not independently making their way around the birdhouse. The mama goes away longer and longer, but brings a lot of different things back when she returns. Like yesterday, some of those things are BIG, as seen in the pictures here. Some of those things are also live mealworms that that seem to figure into the process at some point every day. 

There seems to be one baby that is a little slower and a little sleepier, but the mom has been paying special attention to that one and stuffing some of the huge bugs into that one's mouth with apparent intention. 

The most fascinating change today was the little sparkly bits on the babies' feathers, that I assume will turn into a fuller covering of feathers pretty quickly. Looking forward to seeing what becomes of those sparkles tomorrow and beyond . . .

Mama Bird with Worms

Mama Bird with Weird Creature

Mama Bird with Bigger Bug

Mama Bird with Biggest Bug

Sparkly Bits

Starring Out

The babies are getting darker/hairier/featherier but the more interesting thing is that they are starting to "star out," in that they are moving their heads away from each other unlike prior days when they wrapped their necks around each other and put all of their heads together in the middle of the nest. Now they put their heads away from each other more often than not, forming a bit of a star in the cup. The mom isn't sitting on them hardly at all now, as she is keeping a vigil in the door of the house. One of the pictures below shows her tail from the opening, indicating she is keeping watch but not sitting right on them to keep them warm. 

She is still bringing those BIG bugs in; it turns out that those bugs are the source of hydration for the babies. There is a pic below of the mom with one of the big bugs, so feel free to identify it if you can!

Mama at the Door

Bluebird Babies Going Solo

Bluebird Baby Star

Mama with a Big Bug

A Bluebird Poem

 May 7. All is well in bluebird land today, as the babies are getting a little bolder and making attempts to climb up out of the "cup" of the nest. They are even sort of individuating, as they used to be one big mass all wrapped together, but now they are not only separating themselves, but they are even starting to peek out from under their mama when she sits on them. She seemed to go away for longer periods today and she would come back with all kinds of weird (and BIG) insects and pop them right down the babies' gullets. You can see some of their features forming in the attached pics from today.

Noticing their claws and beaks and little feathers brings to mind the beautiful short poetic thought piece that Jen Kulbeck wrote this week. Her writing group had a 10-minute free write using a prompt about street signs. She lit upon a sign message that took her to thoughts of the bluebird house. Here's what she sent:

I wrote about the bluebird family in my class tonight. The prompt was "street signs" - in 10 minutes, here's what came:

Do not enter. Do not lift the top of the birdhouse to look inside. Just run the cables from the camera you installed in the lid and leave it be. Thank you for learning how to livestream, and thank you for getting a camera with a little microphone. Eggshell blue is many different shades of blue, blue-green, dark aqua - and the awkward pink hairless nubs that have come from those five small, compelling shells - there are many romantic words in the world that could describe it all. I'll admit I've been dreaming about the barely sounds that no one can hear during the minutes when soft tissue becomes hard tissue and then beak or claw. I see the yellow color lining the little open mouths when the bluebird enters and drops food into each one. That yellow lipstick is a soft beak just starting to form. Maybe there is a crunching sound, maybe snoring or shuffling or stepping on chests, rustling the twigs around the nest, the wind on the microphone, my heart beating in my chest.

Baby Foot

Babies Venturing from the Cup

Papa Bird in the Nest

Baby Birds Individuating

Wrinkly Babies

May 6. By the third day, the wee ones are getting a little more feathery (though it looks more like "hairy"), which makes them look like they have mini pompadours. Their beaks are also starting to harden, it seems. The mother fed them well into the dark tonight, past 9pm, which seemed unusual. She was feeding them whole mealworms, along with some larval insects that she must be collecting in the nearby Lime Ridge Open Space. The mama bird also managed to get some sleep tonight, which was a point of concern for some interested followers. 

Wrinkly babies

Five Open Mouths

Beaks forming

One clear beak

Mama Bird Wings Crossed

Sleeping Mama

Ant Attack

Only two days after all of the eggs had hatched, there was an ant infestation inside the bluebird house. It turns out that ants can do some real damage both to the nest and to the babies, so it was important to get things under control. The mom was going nuts trying to eat ants as fast as she could. Her valiant efforts -- along with some human-applied soapy insect spray to fight them off from the outside -- meant that the nestlings won, at least for that day . . .

Bird Development

 

Once the babies hatched, they stayed in the center of the cup and formed a little ball where they only differentiated from each other when trying to get food.