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Thanks Tim. What a year. Take it easy for the rest of the year and enjoy the young and the adult birds.
David
Stafford, VAYou haven’t said hoe close your nest box is from other structures and trees. If you have the space you should have more that 50 feet from the box to the nearest structure/trees to keep snakes, squirrels and other predators from dropping on them. Hawks need some space to begin an attack on it’s prey, so keep that in mind when siting the nestbox.
David
Stafford, VAI think that you are on the right track, JTL. You have a nestbox up and if you have seen Bluebirds in your yard or residential area, a pair will find it. Blues usually have 2 or 3 nestings each year. Sometimes you will get a pair of birds that have lost prior mates and find box for a final brood.
I feed my bluebirds live mealworm exclusively and year round since I raise the mealworms. I have a bag of dried mealworms that they do not touch. I might try to put them in a suet mix for the winter.David
Stafford, VATammy – the trick is to sterilize the substrate/bedding,food. I buy a 40# bag of Wheat Bran from a friend who owns a Feed store. It takes a day or so using my wife’s stove/oven but I heat the bran in the oven at 275 or 300 degrees for about 2 hours and put it into a dry dog food container. Kills the moth eggs as well as mites and anything else that might have gotten into the bag. No moths, no mites, no other critters. :)
David
Stafford, VAI grow my own mealworms. I started with 1,000 mealworms from Wild Bird’s Unlimited. Then I ordered 5k from The Hive Queen in Raleigh, NC. I now have about 600 female beetles lying eggs. I should see lots of little worms in a few weeks.
I know that Hive Queen in limiting deliveries during this heat wave. Check the MW sites for their “hot Weather” shipping notices.David
Stafford, VAWell I missed another fledging. I thought that I could catch this one as the birds did not seem too active. I put our the morning feed of mealworms and periodically watched through the back window to see if there was any activity. I only saw the male and female bird take meealworms to the nestbox once. They both went to the opening and seemed to be coaxing one of the birds but I never saw it leave They went away and I made breakfast for my wife and I and waited. I took some laundry down to the basement and came back up – still no activity.
Finally about 1:00 PM I decided to check the box with my iPhone camera. Went to the nest box and did not get attacked by the parents. So I opened the door to an empty nest. Darn – missed again.
But we now have 3 new ones in the air.David
Stafford, VATammy
That is interesting. I have not had success with the nest boxes in sight of one another.David
Stafford, VAAnd the fun begins again. Assuming the numbers will happen as before, it could possibly be June 20 doe hatch and Julu 7 to fledge. Good luck
David
Stafford, VAGood luck with your birds.
Hey, I’ll take twins.
Did the twins fledge?
David
Stafford, VAHere they are at 6 days. They all stayed asleep. I guess that I didn’t create enough noise when I opened the door.
David
Stafford, VADavid welcome back! I always love seeing your bluebird photos!
Dana in PA
Good to see you also, Dana. I missed a good shot today as i was using my trimmer around the bird house in preparation to mow the lawn tomorrow. I peeked in the box and had 5 little beaks wide open looking for mealworms. I had left my cell phone in the basement. Maybe tomorrow.
David
Stafford, VA
