Nest Box Update 4.16.19

As of the morning of Tuesday, April 16 there were 14 eggs and 3 nestlings in our 6 nest boxes. Nine of the eggs are chickadees and 5 belong to bluebirds. The 3 nestlings are all chickadees which also had 2 unhatched eggs in the same nest. I believe they’ll hatch later today, but let’s not count our chickadees before they hatch.

The nest at the Cow Pasture near the Ellerbe Creek Train Tunnel contained two fresh chickadee eggs as I took a peek inside the nest box. There’s probably more to come.

Two new eggs at Cow Pasture chickadee nest (4.16.19).

The Explore the Wild (ETW) nest, which was started by chickadees and taken over by bumble bees, who were subsequently evicted, has had no work done on it since last week. The moss in the bottom of the berry basket in the photo was not added to or rearranged in any way.

Empty nest at ETW (4.16.19).

The Into the Mist nest was worked on by bluebirds and looks ready for eggs.

Into the Mist bluebird nest is ready for eggs (4.16.19).

The chickadee nest in the box on the east side of the parking deck had five eggs at last week’s inspection. This morning it had two eggs and three very naked, helpless, newly hatch chickadees. The remaining eggs should have hatched by this time (as I write, 8 hours later).

Three of five chickadee eggs have hatched at Parking Deck nest (4.16.19).

Last week there were no eggs in the nest box on the west side of the parking deck. Today there were five bluebird eggs.

Bluebirds have laid eggs at Parking Deck nest – west (4.16.19).

As was the case last week, there are five chickadee eggs in the nest at the Butterfly House. The eggs were deposited late last week so they haven’t yet hatched. If all goes well there should see five chickadees in the nest when inspected next Tuesday morning.

Butterfly House chickadee nest has five eggs (4.16.19).

So, we’re off and running. All nest boxes are in use except the one in Explore the Wild which currently has a bit of moss in its blue berry cup, having been abandoned by the chickadees who first occupied the nest box and lost it to a bumblebee. There are fourteen eggs, nine of which are chickadees and five bluebird eggs. Three of the chickadee eggs have hatched.

Perhaps we’ll see more nestlings by this time next week!

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