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!