We’ve had 9 birds fledge since last week, one bird died before fledging, and house wrens seem to be taking over the nest boxes. House wrens have built nests in three of the six nest boxes. The other nest boxes currently contain empty chickadee nests. We’ve only had 2 bluebird nests so far this season, one was destroyed by a house wren, the other fledged three birds. The nest box at the Cow pasture now contains a house wren nest,Read more
Posts tagged: #Carolina Chickadee
Bluebird Update 5.2.17
Things change quickly in the bird world. Two of our nests have fledged their birds, two remain empty from previous evictions of their occupants by house wren activities, and two nests are still hosting nestlings. The Cow Pasture nest box, which had its brood of 5 bluebird eggs removed and destroyed by a house wren, is unoccupied. There’s still a bluebird nest in the box, but there’s been no activity for at least two weeks. The six chickadee nestlings in theRead more
Bluebird Update 4.25.17
We have two empty nests, one bluebird and one chickadee. Of the remaining four active nests, there is a total of 18 nestlings, three of which are bluebirds and 15 chickadees. The Cow Pasture nest box remains empty with no further activity. It has an empty bluebird’s nest within. A house wren cleared it of its bluebird eggs sometime during the previous week. The chickadees that have nested in the nest box located at the entrance to the service roadRead more
Bluebird Update 4.18.17
As of Tuesday morning (4/18/17), we have 10 eggs and 16 hatchlings in our six nest boxes. All 10 eggs belong to chickadees. Three of the nestlings are bluebirds and 13 are chickadees. We lost five bluebird eggs though the nest destroying behavior of another species of bird. When I last looked into the nest box at the Cow Pasture it had five blue eggs within its pine straw and grass lined nest. This morning, it was empty. As myRead more
Bluebird Update 4.11.17
Another week of nesting season has gone by, some things remain the same, others have changed. We currently have 24 eggs, all being incubated, and three hatchlings in our six nest boxes. If you remember, there were 24 eggs in the nests last week. Three of those eggs have hatched. So how can we still have 24 eggs? Read on to find out. The Cow Pasture nest held 2 eggs on Tuesday last (4/4). There are now 5 eggs in that nestRead more
Bluebird Update 4.4.17
We are now into our third week of nest box inspections and all of our six nest boxes are in use. Two of the boxes are occupied by eastern bluebirds, the remaining four by Carolina chickadees. The Cow Pasture nest has 2 bluebird eggs where last week there were none. I expect they’ll be one or two more eggs when I peek into the nest box next week. The chickadee nest in the nest box on the service road in ExploreRead more
Bluebird Update 3.28.17
All of our six bluebird nests boxes are active. Two have bluebirds nests within and four are being utilized by Carolina chickadees. The Cow Pasture nest box contains a nearly complete bluebird nest. It was empty last week but the fair weather has apparently motivated a pair of bluebirds into action. The ETW nest box, located at the foot of a service road on the back side of our Outdoor Exhibits Loop contains a not quite completed chickadee nest asRead more
It’s Bluebird Time: Update 3.21.17
It is nesting season! We have six bluebird nest boxes here at the Museum. I’ve moved four of the boxes to more favorable locations due to future construction or plant succession at the previous sites. Here’s where the nest boxes are currently located: As it was last year, the Cow Pasture nest box remains where it had been, in the meadow near the Train Tunnel. The Sailboat Pond nest box has been moved to a service road on the backRead more
Bluebird Update 7.26.16
The 2016 bluebird nesting season here at the Museum of Life & Science is officially over. We had 25 birds fledge, 19 of which were eastern bluebirds with 6 Carolina chickadees. The most productive nest box was the Cow Pasture nest box with a total of 9 bluebirds fledged, 5 early in the season and 4 in a second brood. Five bluebirds each fledged from the Woodland and Butterfly House nest boxes. The Bungee nest box, which is just northRead more