Sunday, June 1, 2008

Eggciting update...

The petunia basket nest is up to SIX eggs!


I've been trying to surreptitiously snap a photo of Mama Bird on her nest, but she is awfully camera-shy. I did, however, get this shot of her (from a distance and stretching the zoom function of my digital camera to its maximum capability) as she dined at one of our backyard feeders. Well, I'm 99.9% certain it is Mama Bird - she flew out of the basket and over the house, and I raced back there to find this one bird stopping at the feeder.


Do the bird-expert blog readers out there still think this is a house finch family, based upon the pics of the nest and the presumed Mama Bird? Anyone? Bueller? I just wonder at the one, much larger egg in the nest with all the other smaller, more uniform-looking eggs...

3 comments:

Nora Hampton said...

Hey Heather.
That one larger slightly different egg is a tad suspect. Check with the resident bird experts at church...Judy Schojan. She knows tons about birding. Ask for her email and send her the pict...or have her look at it on your blog.
She will know. Cool tho...huh?
I had hummingbirds nest 2 years ago. I loved it.!
Nora

Anonymous said...

That looks like a house sparrow (meanie lil' birds who try to take over my blue bird houses)

I wonder if the larger egg belonged to a different bird altogether....one that the house sparrow "evicted".

This is neat like a live-cam...I'm anxious to see the babies :)

Nora Hampton said...

HI Heather,
So I did a little research...
the first eggs in the nest are finch eggs..the lightly speckled ones.
The larger, heavily speckled egg is a house sparrow, as is the bird in the picture.
Watch closely to see if the sparrow is sitting the nest. If so,it chased away the finches and took over the nest, and will probably kill the finchs when they hatch. Nasty little birds those sparrows.
When you see those nests...you get rid of them.
Good luck.
Nora