The dead nestling occurrence sounds like a predator or competitor bird killed them.
The bluebird saga sounds like OCD behavior 😊 (joke). Donna Scott Kendal at Ithaca-377 Sent from my iPhone On Jul 10, 2025, at 2:13 PM, JoKayaks <[email protected]> wrote: I’ve read general bits about what the birds do with those fecal sacks…eat them, drop them away from the nest…. Interestingly I have a male Eastern Bluebird who seems to be fastidious about lining them all up on a particular branch roughly 150 yards away from the nesting box. They are my first EABL that I’ve had nesting in my new property. The other thing I noticed is that they had a successful brood of four in one nest box, then completely dismantled it and rebuilt in the nearby box. Not one piece of nesting material was left in the first box. Are these typical behaviors for EABL? This year, I also had two chickadee nests. One morning, the parents were busy carrying food to the new hatchlings then within an hour, I saw them thrown out of the nest…fully hatched, partially hatched and unhatched littered the ground below. Same with the other nest at the back of the house. I could hear happily chirping newly hatched young with parents actively feeding only to have silence and no more visiting chickadees. Opened the box and their were 6 dead day old and 2 more partially hatched eggs. 2 weeks later, no sign of any of the dead or the eggs. What happened? Both nesting boxes were attached to opposite sides of the house. Jo Sent from my iPhone -- (copy & paste any URL below, then modify any text "_DOT_" to a period ".") Cayugabirds-L List Info: NortheastBirding_DOT_com/CayugabirdsWELCOME_DOT_htm NortheastBirding_DOT_com/CayugabirdsRULES_DOT_htm NortheastBirding_DOT_com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave_DOT_htm ARCHIVES: 1) mail-archive_DOT_com/cayugabirds-l@cornell_DOT_edu/maillist_DOT_html 2) surfbirds_DOT_com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) aba_DOT_org/birding-news/ Please submit your observations to eBird: ebird_DOT_org/content/ebird/ -- -- (copy & paste any URL below, then modify any text "_DOT_" to a period ".") Cayugabirds-L List Info: NortheastBirding_DOT_com/CayugabirdsWELCOME_DOT_htm NortheastBirding_DOT_com/CayugabirdsRULES_DOT_htm NortheastBirding_DOT_com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave_DOT_htm ARCHIVES: 1) mail-archive_DOT_com/cayugabirds-l@cornell_DOT_edu/maillist_DOT_html 2) surfbirds_DOT_com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) aba_DOT_org/birding-news/ Please submit your observations to eBird: ebird_DOT_org/content/ebird/ --
