A Day for the Birds

Some might have called it a Dog Day of Summer, but I call it a Day for the Birds!  Right after lunch on the way to BIL's we passed a country road just south of thier place.  DH hit the brakes and blurted out, "You have GOT to see this!" while backing up the truck.  He pointed my eyes down the gravel tree lined road.  Wow!  A whole gaggle of turkeys gathered in plain sight in the middle of that side road.  We counted nine in the picture.   We are seeing more and more turkeys every year! 

Later this evening, I was out making the rounds, checking the birdboxes and much to my surprize I managed to catch the babies on their BIRTHDAY!  You can see in the pic that three are completely hatched out and the last one has pipped.  See his cute little bill peeking out of the egg?  The others are all ready to eat.  I wonder if the parents have fed them yet?  Father bluebird was not too far off.  He perched on a T-post not too far away, keeping a close eye on me as I snapped a few pics of his tiny newborns.

Bluebirds

Checked the BB box the other day and the babies seem to have fledged at some point.  I have not monitored them closely...too busy.  There were three of them and all seemed healthy last time I checked.

Still No Success

Well, yesterday I removed the last two remaining eggs from Mo, the goose's nest.  One by one the eggs went bad...some of them breaking in the nest and stinking to high heaven, Poor thing.  Her due date would have been between July 2 and 4th.  I let her set on the last two for another week-- just in case.   I felt pretty safe in removing those last two that there was not going to be any goslings...again.  She has been getting off the nest a lot more lately, so I think she just knew... but also felt kind of obligated to set on them since they were there, I guess.  So when I checked on her later, I could see that she had scattered the straw everywhere looking for her eggs...but didn't really seem bothered, but in fact relieved, that it was over.

On a happier note, Bluebird nest box number 3 has three bluebird hatchlings again.  I had not checked on it in awhile, so not sure when they hatched.  They have been there for a few days anyhow.  Box number two still has HOSPs building nests in there.  I keep removing it and they keep rebuilding.  No eggs yet, though.  Box number one needs to be moved back to its usual post.  I had moved it next to the back door when I had a pair of tree swallows trying to build a nest on top of the porch light.  I was hoping they'd see the box and take a hint...

Bluebirds Fledged

I had not been posting on the bluebird babies in the two boxes, but have been checking on them every couple of days for the last couple of weeks.  Today I checked on them expecting them to be fledged or very close.  Sure enough both nests of babies have fledged within the last couple of days!  I am so glad that they survived this time...no problems whatsoever!  Four fledged from the #2 box and two fledged from the #3 box. 

Goose is Broody

Yesterday our goose 'Mo' decided to begin to set on her eggs.  She began laying almost on the first day of Spring and I only collected the eggs for a couple of weeks.  So the oldest of these eggs are from around the second week of April.  I read somewhere that in eggs older than seven days the fertility begins to go down.  This goose has never successfully hatched out a brood and she is about five years old.  There could be any number of problems from the eggs not being turned enough, lack of humidity, too old, etc.

For a goose, the egg incubation period is 29 to 31 days.  So if she is successful this year, we can expect the goslings to pip between July 2nd to the 4th.  Talk about Independence Day!

Bluebirds are hatched!

Both boxes #2 and #3 are hatched!  Box #2 has four tiny bald babies and #3 has two.  It looks like they may have hatched either today or yesterday.  Box #1 has been taken over by House Sparrows.  I have removed the nest several times.  I guess they ran the tree swallows off.

Good News...

Well a few days ago, I made the rounds of the three nest boxes.  I had removed the dead bluebirds from the first box, but left the nest intact.  Today, this one had some fresh dried grass lining the old nest.  Very good!  Even better, was that the two others also had what looked like bluebird nests!  These are the two that the English House Sparrows had been trying to build their nests in.  I wasn't about to let them though.  I kept removing the nests before they were ever finished.  Finally, I think they just gave up and went away.

So now all three have nests in them.  No eggs on that day.  Today, I was surprized to find three bluebird eggs each in boxes two and three!  Box number one, though seems to have been claimed by a pair of tree swallows as it had several large feathers in the nest.  These look like they might be turkey feathers that were left outside from the turkey that DH shot fourth season.  It was his first turkey ever and Boy, was it delish!  Turkey Fricasse for dinner that night and enough put into the freezer for another ten or twelve meals for the two of us!  But that is another story.

What Happened?

On the 25th, I went out to check on the bluebird hatchlings.  I opened the door of the box and to my dismay, none of them were moving.  I thought they were dead.  I touched one and it was ice cold!  I noticed a slight movement in one, so one by one, I picked all four of them up and held them in the palm of my hand.  Other than the one who seemed to move a tiny bit, I was sure the rest were already gone.  One a whim, I cupped them in both hands and began to blow my warm breath onto the poor things.  Bit by bit, as they warmed up, they each began to move!  Still alive!...all four. 

At this point there was not a parent bluebird to be seen.  Usually they stand watch from the powerline just across the street.  I wondered if something happened to one or both of them.  Why would the mother leave them like that; so long that they were chilled to the point of hypothermia? 

I brought them to the house, still cupped in my hands, breathing on them as I walked.  Inside I found a box lined with excelsior.  I placed a soft tissue in the box and this gave me a place to hold the babies while I tried to figure out what to do...  In hindsight, I should have called someone...the bluebird man could have told me what to do.  probably even knew of a nest, or several nests with two day old babies that we could divide them between.  I wish I had. 

All I could think to do at the time was to try to keep them warm and to see if I could give them something to eat or some water with a dropper.   I first gave them each a drop of water from a dropper.  Their naked little necks were so weak that they couldn't even hold up their heads.  The weakest three wouldn't even open their little mouths at first.  It took a little prodding, but finally they did.  I got them all to take some water and they seemed to gain some strength.  By then they were opening up thirstily for the water. 

I soft scrambled a little egg and tried to give a tiny bit of this to one.   He was still too weak and I could not manage to get it into him without scaring myself.  Was I going to choke him?   

I decided to check outside and see if the parents had showed up.  When I went back out, the father was there on the powerline and divebombed me as I walked up to the box!  Still the mother was nowhere around.  I placed the babies into the box along with some foot warmers stuck to the inside of the box... maybe this would help keep them warm if the mother was gone.  And I hoped that the father would be able to take care of them on his own in that case.

When I checked on them the next day, they were still alive!  They even looked up at me when I opened the box!  This gave me some hope for the little guys. 

I checked on them today and they were all four dead.   Lesson learned.

First Blue Babies

Has it really been since January that I last posted? 

Well, I have been expecting...bluebirds that is!  After checking the boxes the day before the Annual Blubird Conference (April 10th). I found one nest with five eggs.  The other two boxes were either empty or had the beginnings of a House Sparrow nest.  I have removed it half a dozen times by now.  The sparrow spooker that I attached a couple of weeks ago did not 'spook' these determined sparrows.  I guess they were already too attached to this box!  This is the same box that the sparrows kept getting into last year.  I am thinking about just moving it to a new location.  I am not up to the 'final solution' as some other bluebirders are. 

So for the last two or three days I have been checking box number one.  I knew that it would be any time now.  They must have just hatched.  Four were there and one egg remained.  I will check again tomorrow and snap a picture to post.  Such tiny babies!  Tiny little, fuzzy, pink, almost bald babies!

Least Weasel

Found this weasel near the back door today. I assume that it met its grisly doom by way of the cats, but for some reason they didn't eat it. At first I thought that it was a juvenile--I had always thought weasels were much larger than this. It gave me something to worry about for a little while, anyway, since they are carnivores and could easily burrow into the chicken coop.

Finally, I had the chance to look up weasels on the Illinois Department of Natural Resources site. It appears to be the 'least weasel' according to the description. The least weasel eats mainly voles and mice. Too bad. The cats are great for rodent control, but this little weasel was, too! Not to mention that they are kinda cute. If this had been the long-tailed weasel, then I might have had something to worry about, as the list of its prey includes larger animals such as rabbits. There is also a statement that the [long-tailed] weasel can become a problem for poultry.

I had heard that there were once fishers in our area. I have never seen one and hope I never do. Now that might be something, as far as the chickens go.