Blowflies OUT!

I check my bluebird boxes once a week, more frequently when it's time to change nests. There are few things I love more than walking out the meadow with Phoebe and Liam to peek in boxes. My theory that early nests wouldn't be as affected by bluebird blowflies proved more or less true; half the nests were clean and half had nasties in them. Here they are, for those of you who don't mind looking at maggots. They're about the size of your pinky fingernail and they can take a whole lotta blood out of a baby bluebird, which doesn't have much blood to start with. So I get rid of them, and put a clean, albeit clumsily-made, dry grass nest in the box.
For performing this service, I get to see the rose-pink of freshly laid tree swallow eggs,
the coral squirmers that are newly-hatched bluebirdsand the light coming through the pines along our oilwell road.Photo by Phoebe Thompson; fashions by Ricardo of Poland.

There is much to be thankful for today.