Bluebirds First Nesting

When my dad came to visit last October he bought and put up a bluebird house on an old light pole in my backyard. This turned out to be a great choice as the bluebirds love it and I hear that black snakes and coons have a harder time getting up a wide pole if they are in search of eggs or babies. I have no problem with nature being nature, but I would also appreciate my bluebirds having some babies that make it to have little families of their own.

A pair of bluies chose our house pretty early on and started building their nest. The female of the pair became very obsessed with her reflection in our back patio door. For days she would sit right on the other side of the door flapping at herself and making chorteling noises…and then it seemed to stop…until we noticed bluebird poo all over Robert’s car. While leaving it parked in the driveway one day she noticed her reflection in the windshield and continued the threats towards her reflection. So we figured we could stop this by making sure the cars were parked in the carport every night. It seemed okay until she decided that her reflection was so fascinating that she needed to come into the carport, perch on the side mirrors and peer at herself while pooping a lot on the sides of the cars. Not much else we can do now except wash the cars more frequently and hope she loses this weird obsession. It’s kinda cute and funny, except I don’t want her to hurt herself and I would rather not have to wash my car every week.

Moving on. I was excited to see a little bluebird in the nest a short while later. There were three eggs, but only one hatched. I have no idea if that is normal or not. Maybe because they nested earlier it was cool and they hard a harder time incubating? Or maybe mom was busy freaking out at her reflection so much she didn’t take good care of the nest? I have no idea. We’ll see how this next nesting goes. I’ve been happy to see the fledgling around the yard and dad feeding it. We pulled out the old nest and they are already busy making a new one.

Robert learned after clearing out the old nest that next time he should bury it so the parents don’t just use the same material the second time around. We hear old nests can attrach ants which could cause the parents to abondon the nest. We definitely would like to avoid that.