Bird Nest

We have another bird nest to watch this year. Last year a sparrow made a nest & laid eggs in one of our hanging baskets & we followed their progress. Here's a link to last year's Bird nest.
This year one has decided to use one of the evergreen bushes outside our window.
But notice that there is a different egg in there!

There is the tiny blue egg with black speckles & that is the sparrow egg. But there is also a larger white egg with brown speckles. I have no idea what this means. Did the sparrow lay an unusual egg? Or did she take over a nest with another bird's egg in it? Hmmm...
Here's a close up so you can see the difference in size.

We learned last year that birds usually lay one egg a day until they are done.
The following day there was another egg.

And today there is another. There are 3 blue eggs & 1 white one. The sparrow last year laid 4 eggs total, so I bet there will be another blue egg tomorrow.
I'm looking forward to see what hatches out of that while egg & if the mother & father sparrow will take care of it. Last year we saw the mother only at first, but when the birds hatched, there were two sparrows taking care of the little birds.


I'll update with more pictures as they hatch.

Empty Nest

The baby birds have left the nest. Actually, they left on June 26, just a week and a half after they hatched! I didn't realize it would be that quick.
And it wasn't as happy an ending as I'd hoped.

The 4th baby bird that hatched a few days later than the rest, died after just 2 days. It was so much smaller than the rest, I think it couldn't compete for food.

Here's a picture with all 4 birds. The youngest baby is at the top of the nest, & you can see his little head is so much smaller that the other bird's heads.

And here's probably my favorite picture. Again, I wasn't really this close, it was the zoom. As I stepped near to take the picture, my foot snapped a little twig, & the noise made them think their mother was near. This is what they did:The above picture was taken on June 20, when they were just 5 days old.

A few days later during the weekend, one of the birds crawled/walked (?) out of the nest & was staying near the nest in the basket. We had just over an inch of rain on Saturday the 23rd. We looked in the nest the next morning & the bird that crawled out had died. :( I don't know why. Maybe it drowned? Maybe it couldn't get back in the nest so it could cuddle with the other birds to keep dry?


So then there were just 2. And on June 24 or 25, they decided that they too were tired of the nest & they prefered the basket. See? They're sitting just next to it. I was afraid they'd fall out.
Then, on June 26, they must have been ready & they left! It wasn't quite that simple. lol My dh came in the house & told me that one had fallen out of the nest/basket & the only way he knew was that our German Shepherd ran up to it & sniffed it! Not knowing for sure what to do, we decided to take our chances & put it back. My dh wore gloves & put him back. I was in the house when he put him back. But, what happend next let us know that he hadn't fallen out of the nest. As soon as dh put the bird back, he JUMPED out of the hanging basket & ran across the garden. He said it sure was a sight. LOL


So only this little guy was left:

This one spent the entire day alone in the basket. When we checked the nest after supper, he had left also. These are the dates:

The nest was noticed with 1 egg in it on June 2.

2 birds hatched on June 15.

1 bird hatched on June 16.

Last bird hatched June 18 or 19.

Both surviving birds left the nest on June 26.

So long little baby birds!

The picture below shows yet another bird nest. This one is under the lid on our propane tank. I think there's always a nest in there. We always see some type of blackbirds taking worms for their youngins in there. These eggs are about 3 times the size of the sparrrow eggs we had. We shut the lid & we will NOT be following the progress of this nest. LOL

4 Baby Birds

We now have 4 baby birds. We didn't know if the 4th egg was going to hatch. There had been a problem with it. It had somehow got knocked out of the nest, down into the flower basket.

After a few days my dh put it back. So, we didn't know if it would hatch or not. We didn't know what to do with that egg....if maybe the mother had knocked it out, knowing it was a bad egg?
Or maybe one of the dogs hit the pole holding the basket as they ran by? We thought we shouldn't mess with it, but then one day dh decided to just pick it up & put it back.

Some time yesterday, it hatched! :)

BABY BIRDS!

We have baby birds!


Last evening after we picked up dd from camp, my dh saw them. I grabbed the camera & took these while the mother chirped from the black walnut tree. I was not this close, I used the zoom.

Dh told me this morning that a 3rd one had hatched. But I haven't seen it yet as the mother has been sitting on the nest. Again, I wasn't really this close, it was the zoom.

I'll see if we can get pics every few days.

More eggs

Monday we saw a 3rd egg.

Tuesday makes 4 eggs!

And in the picture below, the mother is on the nest. But I don't know if you can see her with the picture this small. I know that she is there, just so hard to see. There is a flower blossom in the center of the bottom of the picture. About 2 inches upwards, she's there...but she sure blends in! If you know how to make the picture bigger (I don't, lol) you may be able to see her. You can see just her head.

Viola hanging basket suprise

My mom got me this hanging basket back in April. We hung it out at the garden.

Saturday I brought it up near the house to sit in the shade & pick off the blooms. (not all the blooms, just the 'past prime' ones) In about 15 minutes I had about 3/4 of it done (there's lots of blooms!) & I had to seperate the middle because it was so thick.

I got a big suprise!!

After getting all excited...lol

I hung the basket back up. I searched the net trying to identify it. It's too small to be robin eggs, these are about the size of jelly beans. Plus, it has black speckles on it.

Then Sunday afternoon our 4 year old son yelled to me that he could see 2 eggs in the nest! (I have since told him to stay away from the basket. lol)

I also read on the net that mother birds do not lay all the eggs at once, but only 1 a day.

I just went out to check, but I couldn't see in the nest because the mommy was there! She's very tiny & brown. I think she's some kind of sparrow. I put the camera on zoom & took a picture, but you can't see her. And, dh told me there are 3 eggs this morning!

This will be fun watching the nest!

(and now I have a new subject on my 'blog'....LOL)