FreeLists / va-bird / [va-bird] Bluebird behavior

[William Minor <senexva@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  We have followed Bluebird nestings in 30 +  boxes for more than ten 
years , but
recently observed behavior that was new to us --- not that we felt that 
we had seen everything !
    In a box from which five young had been previously fledged , a new 
nest was built and five eggs laid .
The box was checked weekly , our normal routine , and we visited it on 
the 20th. day from
the observed completion of the clutch . As we approached the box a pair 
of Bluebirds were
sitting on the fence rail near it , the female with a beak full on 
insects . She entered the box
and we assumed that she fed young . But on inspection we found no young 
, and five eggs
 remaining in a messed up nest . The eggs were removed and were found 
to contain no embryos
 when broken .
    The box is on a fence row  , with a box every 100 yards , and a 
total of five boxes in the immediate
area . The box on one side of it had had three unhatched , infertile 
eggs removed on the same day ,
and the one on the other side contained five half-grown young .
  Any ideas about what was going on ?

Bill and Maureen Minor
Charlottesville , VA

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