The Bluebirds haven’t stopped their tapping on the windows, although now sometimes they just sit on the window sill looking inside. I decided to check the nest as they seem to be paying more attention to what’s going on in my house than their own.
With heavy heart I’m sad to say there are only 2 out of the 5 eggs in it now. Perhaps that’s why they were tapping at the windows because they were upset their eggs had gone missing. I decided to check the Chickadee nest too and it was empty other than the nest itself. After carefully inspecting the ground around the nest I did find one Chickadee egg and one Bluebird egg that had a holes poked in it.
Bluebird egg 😦
Today I noticed a Wren going into the Chickadee’s house. Wrens apparently are known for destroying other cavity nesting birds eggs and even throwing babies out of the nest, but it is the first time it has ever happened here. Usually the wrens arrive first and pick their houses, but for whatever reasons, they arrived after the Bluebird and Chickadee already set up residence this year. Normally, you know me, I love all the birds, but right now I could wring the Wrens neck! There are plenty of empty birdhouses left around the property that they could have chosen.
I’ve been watching and I haven’t seen the Chickadee even going to the nest box anymore and I was so excited as it’s the first time one has nested in my birdhouses. And even more so, I’m concerned that the Bluebirds aren’t tending to the two eggs that are left in the nest. They seem to be checking all the birdhouses looking for their eggs or possibly to set up a new nest. And of course still spending a large part of the day tapping or just sitting and looking in my window.
I went to a website to see if there was anything I could do and there’s a video of a wren destroying eggs and another actually removing newborn Bluebirds from their nest. Luckily the home owner had a live camera in the bird house and happened to be watching it at the time it happened and they were able to go outside, find the baby bluebirds and place them back into the nest.
There were some suggestions I guess I’m going to have to try. The wrens already have two nest boxes occupied and after reading from the Sialis.org site I’m thinking part of the problem may be that we had to re-secure the post the wrens current bird house is attached to this year and when my husband did it he changed the direction slightly that the bird house faces-so that now the other birdhouses are in a direct line of sight. So I’m headed outside to see if I can rotate the post so the wrens birdhouse doesn’t face any other birdhouse.
Check it out the Sialis website for some interesting reading
http://www.sialis.org/wrens.htm
I’m hopeful that the Bluebirds will take care of their eggs or at least build another nest and that everything will work out. Right now I’m feeling pretty down though.
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