Baby Bluebirds, June 26th.

Amazingly, it rained again last night. Fortunately, the sparrows gathered a large amount of nesting material into the martin house and we were able to rob that for dry material for the bluebirds. This morning when I opened the box, I had a planter all ready to scoop the babies and their old nest into while I put a new dry nest into the box for them.

This gave Eric a chance to photograph them and he got some rather nice shots. Once I had their new nest ready, I put them back in the box, one by one. I got a little "cheep" out of two of them, but they really didn't complain very much or struggle over being handled. The parents aren't that thrilled. They didn't bother about us opening the box until the first time I removed a chick. Now, they swoop around as long as we have the box open. They also immediately recover, so I am not too concerned about a freakout.



This morning, Eric shot this bee on my White Swan Echinacea. I am very concerned about the lack of bees and butterflies. I have many flowers to attract both and I haven't seen very many of either this year. Normally, I have quite a few bumble bees that spend the night sleeping on my flowers and nectaring on them during the day. I have only seen two bumble bees this year. We had a monarch here today, the first one. I haven't seen a single swallowtail. This extreme lack of pollinators is very disturbing.

More photos are here.