Springtime Is In Full Effect: Carolina Wren Edition: Egg Me!: Part 2

Here's the link to Part 1:

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/04/springtime-is-in-full-effect-carolina.html

As I posted in the previous blog post, springtime is in full effect.  A pair of Carolina Wrens' spent a few weeks building a nest on the porch.  Then, surprise!  They laid eggs.  It has been ten days since my first post and a few things have happened.

First up, the female Wren laid two more eggs.

She ended up laying one egg per day for four days.  Now comes the hard part for her, sitting on the nest.  This presents a problem.  When I walk out on the porch she doesn't want to move off the nest, but if she sees me looking at her, she takes off flying.

She's about taken my head off a few times.  So I have to "Use the force," and walk quickly by the nest without looking at her.  If I take my time, or look her in the eyes, she comes flying straight up my nose.  I'm not kidding.  One time she came pretty close to picking my nose as she flew by.

I can't blame her that time.  It was early morning and the sun hadn't come up.  I was standing by the nest, and looked in her direction.  Since it was dark, I couldn't see her, but she saw me.  That's when she panicked, and zoomed by me.  I'll admit, I did not take it well.  I hadn't been scared like that in a long time.  But again, that one was on me.

The incubation period for Carolina Wrens' is 14-17 days.  I'm not sure if that's from the day the first egg was laid or not.  Since it's so warm down here in Florida I'm going to guess the incubation period is going to be closer to 14 days.  So in about 3-4 days I'm going to start looking for baby chicks.  But I'm going to do it extremely carefully.  I might also use a shield.  We'll see.

Springtime Is In Full Effect: Carolina Wren Edition: Egg Me!

A funny thing has happened the last few weeks.  A pair of Carolina Wren's have been building a bird nest on the screened in porch.  I know this leads to a few questions.  First, "How did they get in?"  Well, one of the screen doors is bent at the bottom.  They learned they can just fly down to the ground, and hop onto the porch.  The crack in the door is plenty big enough for them to scoot through.

The second question would be, "Where are they building this nest?"  Well, that's the funny part of this story.  They are building their bird nest in my old bird feeder.  It was old and broken so I had it sitting in a chair on the porch.  I guess they thought it would provide a nice place for a nest.  So for two weeks they built it.

For two weeks, when I was sitting in my chair, I would happen to catch a glance at the Wrens on the porch.  I thought they were hunting for bugs and lizards.  Namely, because they would be on the porch for a short time, and then head out.  What I didn't know was they were building a nest.

What really makes me question the bird-brained madness of it all is, if you remember, I put up five bird houses around the property.  I wrote a blog about it back in early March.

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-birdhouse-community-apartments.html

I was told that Carolina Wrens build several nests around the area, and then decide to choose the best one.  So I figured that this would end up being a decoy nest.  I ended up taking some photos of the nest.

The next day I decided to take a closer view.  That's when I saw this:

That, my friends, is a Carolina Wren egg.  I guess they chose their nest.  So today I went out to check on the nest, and I found this:

That is definitely two eggs.  Now we're starting to get a clutch of eggs going.  I'm going to keep checking on the nest a few times a day.  I want to take photos of any eggs as soon as they appear.  So stay tuned.  It won't be long before they hatch.

Springtime For Bluebirds... And Happiness! Part 2

Here's the first part of the story:

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/03/springtime-for-bluebirds-and-happiness.html

In my previous blog I was telling the story about how a pair of mated bluebirds had built a bird nest in my birdhouse.  Well, they ended up laying six eggs.

It's funny.  Even their eggs are blue.  But I digress.  Not too long afterwards the eggs began to hatch.

Like I said, there were six eggs, but only five of the eggs hatched.  The last photo was taken on March 31st, 2019.  A few days later I started taking daily photos of birds.

April 4th.

April 5th.  One of them has opened his eyes.

April 6th.  A lot more of their feathers came in, in just 24 hours.

April 7th.

April 8th.  They are really starting to be fully covered.

April 9th.  Out of nowhere they now have blue feathers.

April 10th.  Everyone's eyes are open and feathers are coming in nicely.

April 11th.

April 12th.  They are starting to look like adults.  Or at least, juveniles.  And this guy has decided to move off the main nest into the corner.  I figure it won't be long before they leave the nest.

April 13th.  Everyone is awake and looking good.

April 14th.  Oh my!  They have left the nest!  Except for Bob.  Bob doesn't want to move out.  I don't blame him.

April 15th.  And they have all left the nest.  (Tears.)

Wow.  That's the circle of life.  Actually it's the circle of life in just 16 days.  Can you believe they left the nest in just 16 days?  But like a circle, life never ends.  Bluebirds can have up to three clutches of eggs in the spring.  So they might be back to lay more eggs.  Not to mention I have four other birdhouses set up around the property.  They might move into one of those.  And if they do, I'll be there.  Oh, and so will my blog.

And speaking of blog posts, this is my 700th blog post.  I started writing back in April of 2008.  Here it is 11 years later and I am still writing.  If there's something happening and worth writing about, I'll be here typing it all out.

Springtime For Bluebirds... And Happiness!

It's that time of year again.  The time of year the birds are in love.  That's right.  Springtime brings out the best of the birds and the bunnies.  As I have posted before, I have an old birdhouse that I put on the corner of the property.

Over the years I have mostly had Tufted Titmouse pairs take up residence in the spring.  Yes a Tufted Titmouse is a real bird for all of you laughing like Beavis.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Tufted_Titmouse/id

One year I had a pair of Red Cardinals move in and lay eggs.  I was glad to see them, but by the time I noticed they had moved in, their chicks were grown.  Three days later they moved out.

I have to say my old birdhouse has held together over the years.  What's funny, is that, it's actually a parakeet house I bought from Pet Supermarket years ago.  I used oil enamel paint to seal the wood so it would protected in our Florida environment.

So this year the family was wondering if anyone would move in.  Also, if they did, who would move in?  Well, about a week ago we got our answer.  And like they say on the internet, "Pics or it didn't happen!"  So here's who moved in.

That my friends, are Eastern Bluebirds.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Bluebird/overview

It seems like they are digging the new digs.  But will they lay eggs?  Let me answer that with another picture.

One egg, blue egg?  Am I Doctor Seuss?  Wait, there's more?

A few days later another egg appeared.  So let's check in a few days after that.

So now it's one egg, two egg, three egg, blue egg?

But really it was interesting to see how they went about nesting.  First, they removed all of the old nest.  Then, they built a completely new nest.  After that, they started laying an egg every other day.  The nest hasn't been checked in a few days so there might be a few more eggs waiting.

Bluebirds will lay anywhere from three to eight eggs, but can have more than one brood during the spring.  So we might have another brood of eggs laid after this one.

Here are some more fun photos of the bluebirds.

The following are my previous blog posts about my birdhouses.

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2017/10/make-little-birdhouse-in-my-backyard.html

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/02/make-little-birdhouse-in-my-backyard.html

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/03/make-little-birdhouse-in-my-backyard.html

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/04/make-little-birdhouse-in-my-backyard.html

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-birdhouse-community-apartments.html


Oh, and if you sang the title of this blog post to the Broadway play, "The Producers," you win.  For those who don't know what I'm talking about watch this.

Kids... The Great Overactors Of Our Time: An Easter Story

Back during the Easter holidays I was invited to a Easter/Spring Equinox/Ostara party.  It was like any other holiday celebration.  Everyone was invited.  There was lots of food.  And of course, there was an egg hunt for the kids.

 

Now I don't have kids so I haven't had to deal with any in a while.  But the kids there mostly, well, acted like kids.  It was just kind of the usual.  That is, until I spoke with one seven year old in particular.

I'm going to call him Steven.  I don't know why.  He just kind of looked like a Steven to me.  So he's talking to my friend Jeannie who is running the party.  He asks her when the egg hunt will be.  She says soon.

That's when I have to bust in with my Adrian sense of humor.  I say, "Well, we have to make sure the Spring Hare (Easter Bunny) has had a chance to poop all those eggs out.  You don't want to miss a few because you rushed him... er her?"

That's when Steven said something unbelievably  amazing to me.  It wasn't so much what he said but the way he said it.  I have to give him credit, his acting was right up there with William Shatner.

The next part I will write as if this was a novel.

Steven took a pull off his cigarette.  As he breathed out he spoke to me in a low voice.  "No man.  You just don't understand.  I know!  I know it's just a guy in a bunny outfit."  

I was so impressed with Steven that I had no reply.  He was simply amazing.  The sureness in his voice was unmatched.  Even though he was only seven, he knew that the Spring Hare was absolutely a guy in a bunny outfit.  Although he wasn't 100% right this time.  Namely because this time it was a woman.

Make a Little Birdhouse In my ... Backyard? Part 4

So I have even more news about the chickadees in my birdhouse.  But in case you haven't seen the previous three parts here they are.

Make a Little Birdhouse In my ... Backyard?

Make a Little Birdhouse In my ... Backyard? Part 2

Make a Little Birdhouse In my ... Backyard? Part 3

So when we last left off we had six eggs in the birdhouse.  The good news, is that, all six of them hatched!

Say, does that one look like it's saying, "I'm naked, but feed me anyway?"

But they wouldn't stay naked for long.  Just a week later all six had feathers, and were still doing fine.

The chickadee on the upper left decided it was getting a bit crowded in the nest.  Besides, he was a little too big at this point.

Just a few days after that a few of the others had gotten so big they needed a bit more room.

The good news was that all six chicks were still doing well.

A few days after that it looked like all their feathers had grown in.

Again, all six were there.  But do you know that 15-18 days after hatching the chicks leave the nest?  Yes, they are ready to fly out onto the world.  So this is the last photo I have of them. 

I'm glad to see all six made it this far.  As a former pet shop employee I've seen the odds that baby anything have to overcome to reach adulthood.  It ain't pretty.

I'm glad to see my little birdhouse made a little bit of a difference.  Things actually went according to plan.  I put the box up in the fall so it could be used in the spring.  Let's see if another family of birds will move in sometime.  If they do, you can be sure I will be there to blog about it.

So now it's time to play the "Success in Birding" song.

Make a Little Birdhouse In my ... Backyard? Part 3

I have more news about the little birdhouse in the backyard.  It might help if you know the backstory, so here's the links to my previous blogs about it.

Make a Little Birdhouse In my ... Backyard?

Make a Little Birdhouse In my ... Backyard? Part 2

At the end of my last story a pair of Carolina Chickadees had moved into the birdhouse I put up.  They were gathering materials for a nest.  In fact, it looked to be almost complete in the last blog post.  Well the good news, is that, eggs have been laid!

They laid six eggs, which according to the bird field guide, is the average.  The eggs look to be just a bit bigger than marbles.  I know the photo makes the birdhouse look huge, but it's not that big.  Here's a photo of the bird house.

So while the birdhouse may not be that big, having eggs laid is kind of a big deal.  At least it is in my book.  If you look at my first blog post, I installed the bird house all the way back in October.  So I'm glad that all my preplanning came to fruition.

To celebrate everyone wants to hear the song.  Okay, here's the song.  You know you already have it in your head.