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Welcome back, Jamie! Fourteen boxes is a bunch! I hope you are enjoying success this year.
Gin
Atlanta, GADavid, white streaks on eggs are fecal smears. Birds are kind of primitive.
Carol, songbird egg hatch times do not vary by that many days. One to two days’ variation at most. Raptor eggs hatch sequentially, most times a couple of days in between.
You didn’t do anything to cause the hatch failure. Some eggs contain nonviable embryos; some are not fertilized. I have had a few clutches over the years where only one hatched. Made for lots of room in the box and one very well fed chick!
Gin
Atlanta, GAOne more thing. You could candle if you take them out and see what is going on in the eggs. That’s pretty easy to do in a dark room with a pen light.
Another thing you can do when/if you take them out is give them a good, hard look. With bad eggs you will see a clearly defined difference in color displayed on the shell. One part will be darker than the other and it’s a strongly defined difference.
Gin
Atlanta, GACarol, you know that songbirds don’t begin incubation until the last egg is laid. In this they differ from raptors who begin incubation immediately and thus their eggs hatch sequentially. The result is that most songbird eggs hatch within a day or two of each other.
That lone hatchling doesn’t pose a threat right now to the eggs. I would leave the whole thing alone for the next day or two and then have a look. I wish I could say I have a hard and fast rule for removing eggs but I don’t. If there is one I usually leave it for at least a week and sometimes I never take it out.
Sorry to have been away for so long. In these not so normal times, I don’t seem to have much motivation to get in front of a computer.
Gin
Atlanta, GAConnie, late to the discussion but I need to add that I have NEVER seen this either. I did see an EABL destroy a CACH nest once before I could get a hole reducer on the box. I guess any bird will do this kind of thing, but for the CACH to not even use the box is very strange. HOWR do this routinely and I know that from experience. They don’t always want the box either.
Gin
Atlanta, GAHey Courtney! Good to hear from you. I haven’t been doing ANYTHING here until today. Preoccupied with the pandemic and all that.
Gin
Atlanta, GAJudy, I hope your wren guard keeps working. It did not work here today. He got in there and killed both eggs. Now they are back to square one with this cycle. If only they could be as vigilant as TRES.
Gin
Atlanta, GAYou already have that much action? Amazing. Nothing going on here. Everybody must be too wet. All we have is rain…all the time!
Gin
Atlanta, GAWell, ok, I know who she is. I just never connected Zick dough. Sometimes, or most of the time, I’m not firing on all cylinders. I haven’t kept up with all the new recipes since I stopped making the stuff years ago. I read the link, though, and it makes perfect sense.
Gin
Atlanta, GAI think any kind of decoy loses its effectiveness, given a little time. Last week I saw about 6 HOSP perched next to an owl decoy outside of a store. Nice try, Publix.
Gin
Atlanta, GAGood for you Renee but it’s kind of like hitting your head against a wall. What bothers me the most about those stores is that somebody who knows nothing will go into one, buy one of those awful boxes, take it home and most likely put it on a tree or fence. The person who sold it, be it store owner or employee, often doesn’t have a clue. Sad really.
Gin
Atlanta, GAFirst nest: 5 eggs, all fledged
Second nest: 4 eggs, one removed by a cowbird then EABL laid another. 2 hatched and fledged.
Third nest: 4 eggs, 3 hatched and fledged.So that’s only 10 fledged here but I’m happy considering the cowbird incident.
Gin
Atlanta, GA
