Here is a shot of the early development of the Barn Swallows. It is hard to make out a lot of fine detail as the young are still very small and covered by not only each other, but the feathers that line the inside of the nest.

You can definitely make out at least 3 different bodies in the nest... however, at last count, there should be 5 remaining in the nest (after the one egg was deposited out the other day).

Upon inspection of the nest today, a fifth egg was found to be present! She could have laid the fifth one either this morning or sometime yesterday after I checked the nest (and did not see more than four). Since egg laying is usually done in the early hours of the day, it is more than likely that she laid this egg early today.

It seems that the Blackbirds are in full force right now. Filling any bird feeder, and I mean any bird feeder, must put out the word that there is food available and then they come in swarms.

They come in swarms and they eat everything! They are demolishing all the seed and even the suet put out for the woodpeckers. The only thing they do NOT eat is the grape jelly put out for the Olioles. And guess who's started to eat that? The House Finches!

Remember that one egg that was still in the Swallows nest as of last night? For whatever reason, the parents discarded it over the nest at some point between last night and this morning, as it is now on the ground under the nest. Maybe they knew the egg was not fertile. Now there should be 5 babies left in the nest.

I figured it might be easier to combine both the Bluebird baby and Barn Swallow baby updates into one entry for each day... provided there is an update to be made. Who am I kidding? As long as the babies are around, there will be updates, right?

First off, we'll start with the Bluebirds:



Mama laid her 4th egg in the nest!



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Today was an action packed day. A trip to the Zoo to see the butterfly exhibit and the rest of the animals and birds there, plus the activity with the Bluebirds would have been more than enough excitement, but there's more!

It's just about time for the Barn Swallow eggs to hatch, so we peeked into the nest this evening to find...



A 6th egg!! She must have laid this the day after her 5th, but we never looked into the nest after egg number 5. We're still a day or two from eggs hatching, so it's time to start watching more carefully.

In addition to the other events of the day, there has been some significant progress on the Bluebird front as well.


Mama laid her 3rd egg sometime today.





The babies are also getting brave enough (and strong enough) to come back to the Bluebird box. This baby likes to sit in the tree while his dad goes to grab mealworms from the base of their nesting box.

So if you go to the Zoo, you just can't stop and see one attraction. That would just be so wrong. So without further ado, some other photographs from the trip to see the butterflies...


A Chilean Flamingo cools off in the water.


A pair of Caribbean Flamingos looking as if they were going to get it on, but they didn't. I'm not sure what on earth they were up to.


This Lion was not too thrilled with the heat today.


A Yellow-Billed Stork showing off his feathers.

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