As they were last week, three of our six nest boxes are occupied by Carolina chickadees and three by eastern bluebirds. The three chickadee nests have a total of 6 eggs in one nest, and what appears to be 8 nestlings with 4 each in the other two nests.
The three bluebird nests contain 8 eggs split evenly among two nests and what looks like 4 nestlings in other.
The Cow Pasture nest has 4 chickadee nestlings. Two weeks ago I counted 6 eggs in this nest. One week ago I saw what appeared to be 5 nestlings. Now, it appears there are only 4 nestlings in the nest.
The Explore the Wild (ETW) nest seems to be doing well after a rough start. At one time it had 6 chickadee eggs ready for incubation. The next week only 2 cracked eggs remained in the nest. The following week 6 new eggs were deposited in the soft cup of the nest. And now, incubation is in progress.
A female bluebird, peering out of the entrance hole to the nest box, greeted me as I approached the Into the Mist nest. As I slowly opened the door of the nest box, she slipped out the side. The nest now has 4 blue eggs. I assume the female was incubating them when I disturbed her.
I counted 4 half grown chickadee nestlings inside the nest box next to the Parking Deck. They may fledge by next week’s inspection.
The Woodlands nest appears to have 4 bluebird nestlings. There were 5 eggs last week. Perhaps one egg didn’t hatch. I was only able to confirm 4 nestlings. See for yourself below.
Lastly, the Butterfly House nest has, again, 4 bluebird eggs. Two weeks prior it had 4 eggs with at least one of those eggs somehow broken. Last week there was a new bluebird nest on top of the 4 eggs. Now, this week, the nest has 4 new eggs atop everything else. Not quite sure what transpired here, but it seems to have been sorted out by the birds and all seems well.
In summary we have 6 occupied nest boxes, three by chickadees and three by bluebirds. There are 6 chickadee eggs in one nest and four hatchlings each in the other two nests.
There are four eggs each in two of the bluebird nests and four hatchlings in another.
So far, so good.