Eastern Bluebird (Greenville, TX)
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Nest building began on April 18th!
Species: Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis)
Location: Greenville, TX
Status: We believe the five young bluebirds fledged early on May 24, they were only two weeks old!
Location: Greenville, TX
Status: We believe the five young bluebirds fledged early on May 24, they were only two weeks old!
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2006 Daily Highlights:
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May 25 - The box was emptied out, and
today we saw a male bluebird checking out the site a couple
times. Is it the male from our most recent pair, or is he a new
one looking for a nest site? |
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May 24 - The chicks were all gone at
first light today. Though 14 days is an early fledging age,
hopefully that's what they all did sometime last night. |
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May 23 - The female holds a juicy bug out for the nestlings. Looks delicious, doesn't it? |
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May 22 - The five nestlings were repeatedly visited by both the male and female together - now that's teamwork! |
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May 19 - The chicks are 10 days old, and they are already over half-way toward fledging age, which is usually around 17-18 days. |
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May 18 - The male returns to the nest
with food. Approximately 40% of the food fed to nestlings is
butterfly and moth larvae, and the rest includes spiders, short-horned
grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, and other small insects. |
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May 17 - Five gaping mouths greet the female as she returns with more food. |
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May 15 - The parents keep the nest clean by dropping the fecal sacs outside, 20-100 meters from the nest. |
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May 13 - The nestlings' down is growing out, giving them all a grayish color. |
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May 11 - The last egg hatched yesterday evening,
and the parents have begun taking turns feeding their young. |
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May 10 - There seems to be one egg
still un-hatched, though it is hard to tell whether this is a leftover
fragment of the shell or a whole egg. At least 4 of the 5 chicks
have hatched so far. |
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---------------------------------------- May 9 - The first chick hatched around 9:30 this morning!! |
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The chick is getting one of its first meals! The parents will be feeding the chicks until about 3 weeks after they leave the nest. |
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You can see that a crack has formed
across the second egg. Here a sequence of photos showing the
hatching of the second and third chicks. |
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Bluebird chicks are altricial, which means when they hatch, their eyes are closed, they have no feathers or down, they are unable to walk or fly, and they are dependent on their parents for food. |
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Now the second chick is out--three eggs left! |
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The third chick begins to force its way out of the shell. |
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Before nightfall, 3 chicks have hatched. The rest should soon follow, and may be out by tomorrow. ---------------------------------------- |
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May 8 - Surprisingly, we didn't see the female in the box at all today, yesterday, or most of the 6th. |
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May 4 - The eggs should be hatching around the 10th. |
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May 3 - The male dropped by while the
female was away. Once the eggs are laid, you rarely see the male
in the box unless he pokes his head in with food for the female and
chicks. |
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May 2 - The female rotates the eggs
after a brief absence from the box. Female E. bluebirds tend to
stay on their eggs about 15 minutes at a time, with 10-minute breaks in
between. |
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April 29 - It appears that the clutch
is complete at five eggs, and now the female has begun incubating
them. It will be about 14 days before they hatch. |
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April 27 - At the end of the day, there are still 5 eggs. This may be the entire clutch. |
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April 26 - There are five eggs as of this morning. Bluebird clutches are generally 3 to 7 eggs. |
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April 25 - The fourth egg appeared early today, right on schedule. |
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April 24 - The third egg! The
female will be on and off the nest until her clutch is complete, then
she’ll settle into a more regular incubation pattern. |
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April 23 - The second egg appeared
today. As with the other E. Bluebird pair we had on camera this
year, we should be seeing one egg per day. |
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April 22 - The female laid the first egg sometime early this morning! |
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April 21 - The female bluebird spent a lot more time sitting in the nest today--maybe she is ready to start laying! |
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April 20 - Contrary to claims that the
female bluebird builds the nest alone, this male plays a very active
role in constructing this one. Here, he is helping to form the
nest cup. |
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April 19 - The bluebirds are working hard to make a new nest in the box--here's one of them with a bunch of nest material. |
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April 18 - Here's the female forming a
nest cup. She presses her chest into the collected material and
turns in circles to form the bowl. |
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April 18 - A nice shot of the male E. bluebird as he leaves the box. |
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April 17 - This is one of the first photos of an Eastern bluebird checking out the box. |