Sunday, 6 July 2008 @ 4.31 PM
An interesting birding day
This is a Barn Swallow baby. Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this picture?
Yes, he is NOT in the nest. The nest is located about 12 feet off the ground. This baby is about 4 inches off the ground.
Apparently, sometime between friday night and today all of the babies but this one perished. Last night, the nest was completely quiet, and the parents were not even going up to feed the babies. I had pretty much resigned to the fact that the entire nest was lost.
When I looked out the window this morning to check on what was going on, the parents were flying in and out, and upon further investigation, one surviving baby Swallow was found. The box on the ground used to catch their droppings is what likely saved this guy from the long fall. His new home is now a box with some rocks in it since there is no way to safely get him back into the nest. The parents are sporadically feeding him, but he looks really weak and is not doing much but sitting in one spot barely moving. I'm being guardedly optimistic on his surviving the next few days, especially if we do not get any rain.
Moving on to some happier news on the Bluebird front...
The babies are looking really good so far. The Bluebirds do not seem to be having any problems locating food for their young.
All 5 seem to be present and accounted for in their nest box, but only 4 have hatched so far. These guys are barely a day old. You can see the detail in their feet and wings in this photograph. In a few weeks, they will be even cuter baby Bluebirds!