And How Fare the Bluebirds?

I've been busy with bird doings, keeping up with what's going on in my nest boxes. The garden box was hoppin' with frequent feedings and lots of shrilling from the four girls inside.

I empathize heavily with parent birds this time of year, always running, never caught up, the orange diamonds always open for business.

 I keep the Spa clean, scrubbing it with Comet every three days, and refilling it with fresh clean water. It's always got a bird or five on it. When that thing finally crumbles you will hear my howl all the way to the poles. The Magnificent Bird Spa hasn't been in production for at least a decade, and I haven't seen anything to equal it.  Mrs. Troyer (mom of the garden box girls) found a moment to bathe, and she looked like she needed it.

One of the juvenile phoebes who were raised on our little phoebe shelf hidden under the garage eave gave me a very nice shot for  the Fourth of July!
I've just loved having phoebes around the yard this year. I think of Avis and Luther every time I see them. When you raise a species, you keep a special affinity for it for the rest of your days.

I enjoyed watching the garden babes grow up. I tried to get a photo of them without opening the box. The little heads would pop up, then down when they saw me.

So I crept up quietly behind the box, aimed my phone at the opening, and whistled like a bluebird. Ha! Classic shot, taken July 1.

The same bird, having realized her mistake, hunkered down and hiding. You're in no danger, my love.

Meanwhile, out in the meadow, 15-day old tree swallows are growing up. They may be in the box for another week. It takes a long time to grow wings like that.

I made the rounds of my other boxes, finding evidence of blowflies in several nests. This black staining is blowfly droppings, digested bluebird blood. Yeah, yuck.

But in the bottom of the nest were some blowfly pupae that didn't look right to me. Too dry and sort of withered. So I broke one open and found tiny parasitic wasp larvae writhing inside. That pupa will never become a blood-sucking blowfly!

Good on you, wasplet! You can just make out one at the bottom margin of the next shot, right in the middle. Look for its black thorax and clear wings, just below a piece of straw. I carefully put the infested pupae back in the box, so more parasitic wasps would hatch out. Yay!

By July 3, Day 17, the garden girls were looking about ready to go. 

And what of the 17-day old "runt" that I transplanted into a brood three days younger?

 Here she is on July 2, Day 16, with her wing spread. You can see how much better developed her flight feathers are than the 13-day old foster siblings' are.

Here she is at Day 17, with her 14-day-old siblings. She's the one at lower right, with her head buried under another bird. Hanging in there, not even thinking about fledging, and that is as it should be.

I tried the whistle trick and got a shot of her face, just once. Then she hid again.

The next day, she fell for a whistle and begged. What a July 4 present!

This is a cool photo taken through the box entry hole on July 5, the Runt's Day 19, the rest being Day 16. Pretty sure she's the hulk in the right front. I'm so, so happy that this has worked out. I feel sure she'll stay put until the rest feel like fledging. She'll be more than ready to fly strongly by then!

And on this day,  July 5, her biological sisters fledged from the garden box, on day 19!

Here's to my little phone camera, that lets me peek into boxes without frightening babies into the big old world. Here's to sending one more bluebird out into the world, through a little informed and harmless trickery. And here's to hardworking parents everywhere, who do what it takes to get those babies fed and grown and out to seek their fortunes.