The Fourth Nest of the 2012 Season

HISTORY: New nesting material appeared in the slotted birdhouse on Thursday, August 15th. The first egg was laid on Monday, August 20th, the second egg on August 22nd (she skipped one day), the third egg on August 23rd, and the fourth egg on August 24th. The incubation period began on August 25th. The incubation period began on August 25th. The average Bluebird incubation period is 12 to 14 days, which means the eggs should hatch sometime between September 5th and 7th. The first egg hatched early morning, Thursday September 6th, followed soon after by the second egg. The third egg hatched about an hour later and the fourth egg later in the afternoon. The nestling period will last between 16 and 21 days, which means they should fledge between September 22nd and 27th. The slotted birdhouse can be seen above, and to the top left, of the right side yellow feeder button in the hummingbird video above. All the nestlings fledged on Saturday afternoon, September 22, 2012, between 3:15 pm and 3:45 pm. All is quiet in the nest now. The nesting season in Parkton, Maryland is over for this year. We will keep a camera active in one of the two birdhouses all winter, since different birds will occasionally roost there overnight. Since all the hummingbirds have now left for the south, the hummingbird feeder camera will be looking at the feeders on our deck for the rest of the winter. There is always interesting activity during this time, but we can't wait for next spring's nesting season to begin. We hope you have enjoyed watching our bluebird nests and feeder cameras this season as much as we have enjoyed sharing them with you!

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The Third Nest of the 2012 Season

HISTORY: The bluebird began adding to the nest in the round hole birdhouse on July 2, 2012. This is unusual since we had not cleaned out the birdhouse from the earlier nest building, and the nestling had not fledged from the slotted house yet. However, since this bluebird did start building a nest in this birdhouse, before switching to the slotted birdhouse for the second nest, she might feel that this is her nest already.
                On July 4th, we cleaned out the slotted birdhouse as we normally do after a nest has fledged. Within the hour, she placed some nesting material in the slotted birdhouse, besides continuing to working on the round hold birdhouse nest. Then, about an hour later on Wednesday, July 4th at 9:40 am, the bluebird laid her first egg in the round hole birdhouse. On Thursday, July 5th at 11:10 am, she laid her second egg and the third egg at 12:50 pm on Friday the 6th. She did not lay an egg on Saturday the 7th, possibly because of the extreme heat in this area, but did lay her fourth egg late Sunday morning the 8th. About 5:00 am on Monday, July 9th a cat raided the nest. We had the recorder running, so we were able to capture the entire event. The cat managed to get a paw into the round hole of this birdhouse. It was looking for baby birds, not eggs. So after pulling a lot of the nesting material out of place, it left. Amazingly, the bluebird returned about an hour later and put the nest back in shape and re-arranged the undamaged eggs. She then began to incubate the eggs. Click on this link to watch the entire event. We have removed the one hour time period between when the cat left and the bluebird returned. Cat Attack . This video requires windows media player. The first egg hatched Friday, July 20, early in the morning, one day earlier than expected. The second egg hatched Saturday morning July 21st, about 11:30 am and the third about 12:40 pm. The fourth egg hatched on Sunday, July 22nd about 10:30 am. During Thursday night, July 26th, one of the nestlings died and was removed from the nest by the mother. The nestling phase lasts between 16 and 21 days, which means that the remaining nestlings should fledge between August 7th and 12th.  All of the hatchlings fledged before 1:45 pm on Tuesday, August 7th. We have now cleaned out the birdhouses to see if the bluebirds will return to build a fourth nest.

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