The mild winter and warm March here seems to have put everything in overdrive, even the wildlife. The bluebirds nested early, and by March 22 there were 5 small blue eggs in the nest box. Bluebird watching has become one of our favorite sports here at HA.
March bluebird nest with 5 eggs (click on any image to enlarge)
Those eggs hatched in early April, and by Earth Day they had fledged. My wife scooped me on that event, getting a great shot of a very young bluebird sitting on the ground, waiting to be fed. I managed to get one fuzzy shot later that day of a young bluebird sitting on the grass. We haven’t seen much of the young birds since then.
young bluebird
A couple of days later, I cleaned out the nest box, which had become quite a mess. The parents do a great job of house cleaning when the young are small, but the nest box eventually gets messy when five young birds are crammed in there! I checked on the box yesterday to see if anything was happening, and was surprised to see a finished nest with one egg.
nest with one egg on May 2
At this rate, the bluebird pair could easily raise three broods this year. It’s exciting to me to have a ringside seat for these events, and the bluebirds have become a regular presence here in our lives. And all that certainly helps with the HQ (happiness quotient) here at HA!
bluebird parent on watch in wild black cherry tree
Ah to have bluebirds. We get sparrows, mocking birds and blue jays here. We had a lot more variety at my last house that was in the woods. Here we tend to get the pest birds. At least I don’t have pigeons. Last year we did get some goldfinches to visit when the sunflowers were ripening. They were fun to watch.
We don’t deadhead our coneflowers, and the goldfinches really love the seeds!
How exciting! I wonder if they’ll lay as many eggs this time around? I know that sometimes the clutch size decreases with subsequent broods. Regardless, it looks like a good year for bluebirds!
I love the colour of the eggs – just beautiful. Whilst we do get some nice native birds here – honeyeaters, wattlebirds and the occasional lorikeet we also get a lot of annoying introduced species. Blackbirds, Sparrows and Mynahs are keeping the more desirable birds out of my garden most of the time.