Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Nest Box Patrol Week II

We did a nest box patrol today and found more eggs to show off. These are tree swallow eggs lying in a bed of turkey feathers. They look like miniature chicken eggs with their beige color.


In a few weeks they will look like this. These are the babies that were sitting beneath the tree swallow mom who was flattened out in the nest box as shown HERE. These guys are about 6-7 days old I think.


And here are the 10-12 day old blue bird babies. Mom and pop were hovering around the fence line as I was taking pictures. Mom came back with a fat grub hanging from her beak so I took my pictures quickly so as not to interrupt the constant feeding that is going on.


I lifted this one little guy up a bit so his feather development was more visible in the picture. They will be all grown up and flying around in a small herd before you know it. The family groups stay together for several weeks after the babies fledge and it is not uncommon to see two set of parents and babies forming bands.


Grow babies grow!!

15 comments:

Debbie said...

Oh wow! These are so fun! I never look in our nests. So these are a real treat for me.

Will Scarvie said...

So interesting. Thanks for the comment about how you build you boxes, too. Think I'll do a little research on our local birds, then give it a try. We've got a few choice spots in our yard, and I'd LOVE to have fledgling fluttering around.

Grand Pooba said...

Oh my gosh you are so lucky! I wanna have baby birds! They are so cute! Hope your cats stay away!

MsSnarkyPants said...

Awwwwwwww those baby birds are the cuteness.

brokenteepee said...

They are so cute. I love little birdies....

theUngourmet said...

I had to show my son these! He loved them!

Too bad we can't live off of grubs. Just think of the money we would save!

Unknown said...

great pictures...AGAIN! love em!

Allan Stellar said...

Lovely blog...

Unknown said...

Wow how amazing.

Vixen said...

How lucky you are! We had a nest in the orange tree. One fell out and died. The other fell out, but we saw it, put on some gloves and climbed a ladder and put it back. The parents were so pissed off at first. But then the next day it fell out again and it was hurt. It died just after I picked it up. But we tried!

Frogs in my formula said...

Co-parenting birds--awesome!

The Mind of a Mom said...

Oh my gosh, they are so cute!! we have babies in our tree out front they make me smile every morning when I go out!

Sharkbytes said...

Life just seems to be popping out everywhere at this time of year!

Rick (Ratty) said...

Two sets of parents joining together is the same with geese too. I just witnessed it today.

Anonymous said...

BABIES!

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