As the pressure of population increasingly regiments us and crowds us closer together, an association with the wild, winged freedom of the birds will fill an ever growing need in our lives.
– Edwin Way Teale, introduction to Songbirds in Your Garden, 1953
We took a short trip to Prosper, TX, for the Fourth of July weekend. I expected the eggs to hatch around 07 July. But when I checked the box after arriving home on the Fourth, I found two newly hatched chicks and one little blue egg. I checked a few minutes later and the remaining chick had hatched and Mama had eaten the eggshell. Female bluebirds eat the eggshells to replenish depleted calcium levels in their bodies.
Recently a raccoon has been raiding the yard at night, tearing up bird feeders and opening the birdseed storage barrel. Not one to underestimate the persistence and ingenuity of a raccoon, I worried that when the eggs hatched the chicks would be a midnight snack for this 
marauder. A little peanut butter in a live trap and Rocky was soon in raccoon jail. He was not a happy camper, tried to bite and urinate on his jailer. Terms of his release were that he move to a neighborhood with no human neighbors. Up until his release, Rocky claimed he was ‘entrapped’. Some FeBreze was required post release. The things I do for these bluebirds!
It’s hot now and heat is a killer of bluebird eggs and babies. I have the box located so that by early afternoon it is in the shade of a live oak tree. The Sparrow Spooker is attached and we are ready to rear these babies. Most of the time our babies fledge on the 17th day. That means these should hop out into the big wide world on 21 July. Hopefully this will happen with no drama.
Total chicks fledged from this site is 67.
Third Brood 2016
- First sign of nest building 15 June
- Three eggs 21 June
- Three eggs hatch 04 July
Happy to report our third brood of the season has successfully fledged! The third brood is always the most difficult. Fatigue on the parent birds and the hottest part of summer always make this one risky. One little bird stayed in the box longer than the others, but finally jumped out. Like always the parents take them down to the creek and perch them high up in some mature pecan trees.
Yesterday afternoon was full of surprises. First the resident roadrunner on the reddirt hill paid a visit to the back yard. Came up on to the patio and then jumped up on the blue birdbath for a drink. This is too near the nestbox for comfort. This same bird killed my male bluebird about this time last summer. So I walked outside and encouraged him to move on. As I stood outside I heard the distant sound of thunder and looked north. The sky was a dark blue with some ominous clouds that were quickly approaching. A thunderstorm in parched July is always a pleasant surprise in Oklahoma.
It’s always gratifying to launch another brood of bluebirds on to the red dirt hill behind the house. This second brood of the season brings the number of chicks fledged from our box to 81! We have a lot of bluebirds in and around our neighborhood and I suspect many are descendants from our original pair. We are currently on our third male and female.
hands or spend time really close to them. Bluebirds don’t look particularly small, but an adult weighs only about 1 ounce. That’s not much body mass to store fat for energy and surviving the cold in winter, but the bluebirds persist, making the world a more beautiful place.
I guesstimated that our second brood would hatch 01 June, but they are hatching earlier. I wasn’t home when Mama completed this clutch, so she may have done something a little different while we were gone.
Christmas morning. Bluebirds are truly one of God’s precious gifts to the world. It’s good to get lost in scenes like this occasionally. For a moment we realize that there are important things going on outside our pampered human lives. Perhaps far more important.
We took a short trip to Taos this past week. Left with three eggs in Mama’s second clutch of the year and returned with six perfect little blue eggs in the box. We’ve had rainy, cool mornings and Mama is in the box incubating as I type. Typically bluebird eggs hatch in 12-14 days. I usually just count on 13. If she laid an egg every day, she would have laid her sixth egg on 16 May, and likely would have begun incubating the following day. So the eggs should hatch about 01 June.
Sparrows, but have not discussed wrens. Wrens can also claim nestboxes and puncture bluebird eggs and remove nesting material. While HOSP’s are undesirable birds, wrens are not and are protected by federal law. Still there are things we can do to deter them from building in a bluebird box.
Mama III has been a busy little bluebird! Her first of season brood was only out of the box two weeks when she built a nest in three days and laid an egg on the fourth. The first juvie from the first brood visited the yard with Daddy a couple of days ago. This morning five came in with the adults. Good to see at least five of six have survived a critical part of their life cycle. By the time a bluebird is a month old, it is pretty much self-sufficient. I watched a couple catch some bugs in the yard and Daddy caught a few bugs and fed to them.
Cornell, the optimal range for bird egg development is 96.8 °F to 104.9 °F (36 °C to 40.5 °C). If egg temperatures are lower, embryonic development slows. Higher temperatures can be lethal for the embryo. Bluebird eggs and nestlings cannot survive temperatures exceeding 107 °F (41° C). Prolonged high temps can severely impact nestling health due to dehydration and heat stress. Keep in mind temperatures inside a box in the sun can be 10 or more degrees higher than ambient temperature. As I stated in the last post, I’ve moved the nestbox a bit so that it is in shade most of the afternoon. We should be OK on this brood, but the third is always a challenge in Oklahoma.