Bird Watching: Bluebird thread #10, 0 by 2dCousinDave

2dCousinDave wrote:
Well, I've been putting this off all afternoon. I have even been looking for funny pictures to put captions to and all the time I have been watching a minor tragedy play out in the back yard.

Mama is gone. She was here with the fledges when I fed them about 9:00 a.m. Apparently there was a showdown with the new female I was telling you about and apparenty Mama lost the fight. I did not see the fight but the new female has been here since about 2:00 p.m., trying persistently to get into the nestbox. Papa will not let her go inside He chases her when she tries and then she follows him wherever he goes, constantly wing-waving. The fledglings have had to feed themselves because if Papa flies up to the feeder, she immediately heads for the nestbox. This is so much like last year it's uncanny. I realy believe it happens more than we realize. It just happens out of our sight.

Anyway, it is after 8:00 and starting to grow dark. She is out there still trying and he is still guarding the nestbox. She will get in eventuay and destroy the eggs. Probably by tomorrow morning. I went out and took a picture of them a few minutes ago. They aren't hers so she will not sit on them. Then he will eventually accept her and she will chase away the fledglings since they weren't hers either. I know this is not as rough as OP's loss, since these have not yet hatched, but in a strange way, it's harder for me to understand. I can blame the HOSP when they kill, and take steps to deal with them, but here it is one bluebird doing it to another. And two years in a row. Very much deja vu.

Here is the new female, wing-waving. Her coloring is very different, especially from the back which is much darker and shows some beautiful shades of blue when in flight. From the front the most obvious differences are a lighter shade of rust on the chest and of course, no brooding patch.