Somebody's a new father....

I regularly monitor nest boxes, a martin house, and various nests built around our structures. We've had bluebirds in the nest boxes, rough winged swallows in the martin house (after the martins moved on without nesting), bluebirds and barn swallows at the shop, barn swallows at the pier, pigeons at the barn, a Carolina wren in the goat's hay bag in their shed, barn swallows and eastern phoebes under eaves of the house, and even a couple of blue jays that fledged a bit too early in the yard.

Can't imagine the bug population if we didn't have all of these wonderful bug devouring fowl!

Now if I could just have a cardinal and mockingbird nest close by :)

There have been abandoned nests, abandoned eggs, babies kicked out due to health and brood parasites (like a cow bird, although I've not seen any), and babies fledging too soon. It's a tough life for these birds but I don't interfere. I just enjoy what I can and record what I can on nestwatch.org 

Today these four babies hatched and are waiting on the fifth making some bluebirds new parents. I added the one photo because it held its head up for food and looked cute :) I attempt to get photos regularly but I often miss them. Enjoy!

Happy Father's Day!