Who's Got the Blues?

Who's got the blues? We've got the blues. Blue Birds, that is! We look forward to seeing those sweet little Blue Birds every spring in our yard. For the past several years, however, something or the other, has been raiding our Blue Bird house and eating the eggs. If the eggs survive long enough to get to be hatchlings, something attacks them, sometimes even before we realize they have hatched.

As a result, Blue Birds seem to have been reluctant to even build new nests in our Blue Bird nesting box. As I walked around out back yesterday, I opened the top of the box to see if, by some small chance, there might be a nest in there and maybe even a few eggs. We had not seen any Blue Birds flying around out there lately, so I was a little doubtful as I opened the box to peer inside.

To my great surprise, there was a nest in the box! An adorable little nest, with a little "mattress" of green moss layered underneath it and topped with what appeared to be a downy little "feather bed" of sorts, which I think had been made with some lint from where I had emptied my vacuum cleaner canister in the wooded area at the very back of our yard. The green moss "mattress and feather bed" were encircled in a wreath of brown pine needles. It had been constructed with utmost care and thoughtfulness!

Inside that precious little nest were five sweet little Blue Birds! They looked to have been there for some time. Perhaps a couple of weeks from the amount of feathers they had acquired already.

We are hosts to a beautiful family of Blue Birds, once again!

Baby Blue Birds in Our Nesting Box

Aren't they cute?

When cleaning out the box in the past, I have never seen a Blue Bird nest built quite like this one. Not only is it built in separate layers. It has been built as far back in the box as was possible, away from the entrance hole in the front of the box. 

In the past, when the box was raided, I would find pine needles and parts of the nest hanging from the entrance. I have read that cats and raccoons gain access to the eggs or babies by jumping straight up on the roof of the box, lean over the front and stick their paws inside the box and drag out the nest and babies. 

I took these pictures from the top of the box, looking down in to the box. You will notice when you see the next picture, how far the nest is from the little entrance hole in the box. It may not work. A determined cat or other predator might still manage to reach far enough in to get to the babies. Still, I think it was purposely placed in this manner by some thoughtful birdie parents. Here is another picture in which the little entrance hole can be seen at the bottom of the picture as I was looking down from the top of the opened bird box.

Blue Bird Babies in Our Nesting Box

I do hope that these sweet baby Blue Birds can survive until they are able to take flight. Who knows? Perhaps, some of these babies will return next spring, all grown up, to raise families of their own! 

If anyone knows of any good ways to keep the predators from getting the Blue Birds, I would love to hear them.

I hope you enjoyed my short post about our new guest family of birds.

Thanks ever so much for taking a moment of your time to stop by my blog! I hope you will come back to visit again!

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