I want to thank everyone for there good advice. I cleaned the nest box out May
6th from the Bluebirds. By May 8th a Chickadee had moved in and started
building a nest. Today there is one egg in the nest..... yippee
----- Original Message -----
From: Sarah and/or Trish
To: IA-BIRD
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2010 9:01 PM
Subject: [ia-bird] Bluebird nest box question
I have one Bluebird nesting box at the edge of my yard, this is the 3rd
year. Bluebirds had nest about completed and I found ants in the box, as I did
last year. I taped one ant trap on the bottom of the nest box and put one under
the nest inside the box.
5 eggs laid and they hatched 4/26 & 4/27.
May 1st all seemed well, no ants, chicks seemed fine.
May 3rd, I found one dead chick in the nest and removed it, 2 chicks were
missing, leaving 2 living chicks in the nest. The bottom of the nest in the box
was sparse, leaving the chicks resting on the ant trap. I removed the ant trap
inside the box.
May 4th another chick missing from the nest, and I found it dead about 6 feet
from the nest box on the ground. No obvious signs of anything.
May 6th I found the last chick dead and I removed the nest material. No signs
of ants or any bugs in nest box
My questions,
1) Any thoughts as to what happened to the chicks? The ant trap is one of those
little black plastic ones, with the small holes on the sides (child proof).
Could they have been "poisoned" from it?
2) Would the adults remove week old dead chicks from the nest themselves?
3) When they start another nest what should I look for?
I appreciate any help and thoughts.
Thanks
Sarah Bissell
W. Burlington, IA
[email protected]
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Please contribute your sightings to our list; it is only as good as members
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