Last week I was in Virginia visiting my son and his family. The weather was cold, but mostly sunny. Really spoiled and enjoyed the grandchildren and had a great time.
One highlight of my trip was visiting bluebird birdhouses with my DIL and granddaughter. Laura is helping out the
Virginia Bluebird Society by visiting birdhouses built for bluebirds to nest in. Seems that house sparrows (a non-native species back East) will lay eggs in bluebird nests and destroy the eggs of the bluebirds. The bluebird population is in danger from this sparrow and its nesting habits. I took pictures because this was an exciting visit for me! I had done this with Laura last year but there were no nests. This year was different!!
These birdhouses are put up all over in Virginia. Particularly in areas where there are lots of trees. The first thing you do is approach the birdhouse from the side and tap it with a screwdriver handle to make sure the nest is unoccupied while it is checked. Here Laura is unscrewing the front of the birdhouse which is on a hinge and just drops down.
This birdhouse had some nesting material in the front.
Here you can see the bluebird nest inside the box. The people who do this have a notebook with pictures to identify the nests and eggs of the bluebirds as well as the nest of a house sparrow who may be nesting in there.
Next a mirror on a handle is placed over the nest in order to see if there are any eggs or baby birds. The eggs are slightly visible in this picture by the knuckle of Laura's index finger.
This is a better picture of eggs in a bluebird nest.
I was able to hold my camera above this nest for a better view of the 5 eggs.
In this nest we found 3 hatchlings and two more eggs getting ready to hatch that day. The bluebird lays an egg a day, but they all hatch on the same day about 3 weeks later! Wow!
I really enjoyed this outing to check the birdhouses. I think we checked at least 8 and probably more boxes. Most had nests and some eggs. I think the bluebirds are going to make a comeback!! Thanks to my DIL and the other volunteers who do this for the Virginia Bluebird Society.
2 comments:
Hi Judy! Thanks for stopping by for a visit... yes, Pinterest is addictive! *Winks* So much Inspiration in the Images and a great way to share Photos & connect others to our Blogs. I may see you on the Melrose Crawl but I don't plan on dealing with the mob scene this Month, last Month was too unsettling... so I'll probably wait to visit Sweet Salvage once its calmer & not so crazy. I'll get to see what everything looked like here in the Land of Blog in the comfort & Zen of Home. *Smiles* So I'll probably start my crawl at Rust & Roses and end up at Zinnia's for the Buffet... so Hope to run into you again and that you 'score' some wonderful swoon worthy Found Treasures!? *winks*
Dawn... The Bohemian
What a cool adventure! The blue bird eggs are beautiful. Locally a friend of mine found 3 nests around her yard. What a compliment!
Marissa
Post a Comment