Birds and Nature

The male Eastern Bluebird was a faithful parent that brought food about as often as the female while I was watching. As the nestlings grew older they would come up to the nest hole and open their beaks wide for feeding. SeEtta

The Eastern Bluebird nestlings became very impatient about waiting to be fed and would stick their heads out the nest hole looking for their parents. It wasn’t long before I would hear the parents calling to the nestlings to encourage them to ‘fledge‘ from the safety of their nest hole into the scary world outside. The video clip below shows one of the nestlings that is very near to leaving the nest–it is calling back to the calls of a parent bird as it climbs onto the edge of the nest hole. The male flies in and provides a quick meal though the nestling quickly starts calling again for more food. SeEtta

The nest cavity being used by this pair of Eastern Bluebirds is in the dead tree limb marked by an arrow in the photo on the right. It is on a river bank between a hay field where the I have watched the parent's hunt for food many times and the river which also provides good insect habitat.  SeEtta

The video above shows first the male then the female Eastern Bluebirds fly to the nest cavity to feed their nestlings then 'fecal sacs' to keep the nest clean. I thought the color of the bird's feathers was brilliant in the video clip when the sunlight hit them. Above photo shows the male with it's head inside the cavity--he continues to be very task oriented: he flies in and quickly delivers the food to the nestlings and take the fecal sac, rarely bothering to look in my direction. The female shows less concern about my presence but still looks over at me, and at surrounding area, several times while at the nest.  I take my photos from inside my car and my videos using a tripod right next to the car door so I can use my car as a 'blind' , a technique I use frequently as it disturbs birds less and provides better photos and videos. I stay more than 30 feet away then use a very long telephoto set-up (close to 900 mm equivalent) to get these close-ups....