Bluebirds 2020

We had one successful clutch of bluebirds this summer.  The first clutch was unfortunately frozen when we had some below freezing temperatures before Mama Blue started incubating.  She hopefully sat on those eggs for a very long time until we removed the nest so they could get on with the next brood.

These are the babies from the second clutch and their parents at or near the worm feeder.

We were very excited to see that they had started another nest and had two eggs in the works.

Later in the day, I was weeding in the area of the nest box whilst the birds were hanging around the bird feeder.  I couldn't have been more than 20 feet away from the box when the vandal made the attack.  I had just pulled a weed from that very spot not 10 minutes earlier.  

And upon checking inside the box found this.

They cleaned the broken egg out of the box but didn't come back again to lay any more eggs.  They've been visiting the feeders with the 2nd brood daily.  Hopefully next year they'll return to the box with the camera or this one.  We'll be happy with either.

Meanwhile, this was the second brood at the school.  As you can see, only one egg hatched.  Not sure why.  This happened to this pair last year also.

HWNSNBP continues to put out live meal worms for the blues when we're at home.  The babies are entering the feeder box on their own now, but they seem to depend on Papa Blue to let them know when dinner is served.  

Just as a note - Blogger has changed the way things work and I'm trying to adapt to posting with the new format so if things look a little skewed, bear with me, I'll get the hang of it soon.