Bird Watching: Starting a new bluebird thread, 1 by 2dCousinDave

2dCousinDave wrote:
Thanks, everyone.

I will try to answer your question Pelle, but I warn you it will not be a short answer. If there were a short answer, it would be, “It depends.”

This will be my fourth year hosting bluebirds. The first 2 years (six nestings) and the first nesting of last year, the juveniles fledged successfully, stayed around, and even assisted the parents in feeding nestlings in later clutches. They stayed together throughout the fall and winter, until Papa ran them all off when nesting started again in the spring.

Then, on June 4 of last year, that all changed.

The second brood (four babies) had hatched on May 30 and both parents began feeding them. On June 4, as I left the house to run an errand, I noticed a flurry of bluebird activity in front of my house. There seemed to be about 20 bluebirds fluttering about, obviously excited. I ducked back into the house to get my camera. When I returned, the excitement was still going on, but the activity had moved across the street. Most of the birds appeared to be spectators, watching three birds fighting in the driveway and then on the roof of the house across the street. Initially it was a male fighting with a female, and then two females were fighting with each other. This went on for about 10 minutes, until one of the females retreated with the other female chasing her.

I left to run my errand, thinking only that I had gotten some good in-flight shots.

That afternoon I saw Papa feeding the babies in the nestbox. A strange female was shadowing him and I didn’t see Mama, his original mate. I noticed Papa repeatedly attack the new female but when he did she just cowered down and kept shadowing him. He would not allow her near the nestbox. The next morning, as was my habit, I checked the nestbox. There were only three babies there and one of them was dead. He had been pecked severely on the head.

I removed the dead baby and checked the box again several hours later. It was empty. I heard and soon found one of the babies in the grass. It appeared to be unharmed so I put it back in the nest. Papa was perched nearby, watching and talking to me as I did. But Papa never went back into the nestbox that day. The next morning the nestbox was empty.

In the week that followed, the new female continued to follow Papa around. He continued to attack her and she continued to take it. Finally, he accepted her. At that point she started chasing the juveniles from his earlier nesting. Papa joined in this and they finally ran the juveniles off. A week or so later she built a nest and they successfully fledged four babies.

But Papa’s personality has definitely changed. Gone are they days when the whole family ate together at the feeder. Now he will not permit the new female, or any juvenile, to eat, even at a large bowl, until he has finished. But he has not run these juveniles off. I will watch as the new nesting season starts, to see if he continues his gruff behavior.

Incidentally, I have closely examined the pictures I took and I am certain that the two females in the fight were my original Mama and the new female. The male was definitely Papa. We are left to speculate whether Mama left because she was humiliated or intimidated, or if it was for some other reason. She did not appear to be physically injured when I last saw her but I have not seen her since.


Dave