Feed Me I'm Starving

Look at the mouths on these bluebird hatchlings. They remind me a little bit of dinner time around our house. Four starving young'ins willing to bite your fingers off if you get too close to their mouths.

The hatchlings are about 2 weeks old here. They start out with grey fluff, and turn blue later. Their eyes are open now and you can see the little shafts on their wings. Pretty soon feathers will begin sprouting from the shafts.
The birds are in a nestbox my dad built and mounted to an electrical pole in our back yard. Several wires (about 20 feet above the nestbox) run from the pole to our house and barns - (don't worry, this story isn't about how we electricuted four helpless birds).

Below, Mama and Papa Bluebird sit on the wire waiting for us to leave so they can fly down, enter the nestbox through the tiny hole in front and feed the hatchlings. Mama Bluebird is on the left and Papa on the right.

My husband always teases me saying Papa is much more colorful than his realtively drab female counterpart. If you ask me, what woman wants a guy who looks "pretty." I better not catch my husband putting on make-up!

If you question my dedication to keeping this blog up, you should see my ankles right now. Fire ants have built a hill right underneath the nest and they are quite vicious!

CHOW TIME!

It took me quite a while for me to get these pictures, the adult bluebirds are very skittish creatures! The male bluebird is pictured here with a poor-soon to be devoured-insect in his mouth.

My dad made the bluebird house without a little peg in front of the hole as a perch since the bluebirds prefer to perch on the hole.

One of the parent bluebirds returns about every two minutes with another meal. The baby bluebirds get rather loud when their parent appears competing for the meal.

FEED ME!

All four of the eggs hatched a few days ago. Their wings look like little arms. They are covered in grey "fuzz," and their eyes are not opened yet. I will continue to track their progress in pictures on this blog. Have a great day!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

This is what we got to enjoy after a day full of swimming and barbequeing.
My friend Kim made this beautiful patriotic cake complete with sparkler candles. The fruit was sooo good with the chocolate cake and sour cream icing.