Box 12 - Mystery Box

This box was one of my favorites to check. At first, there were four very typical, very normal Western Bluebird eggs. It wasn't until the next week that it started to get weird. 

These are the eggs I found the second week.

These are NOT bluebird eggs, as they are much too large and the wrong color. A possibility that came up was Brown-headed Cowbirds, a species of bird that lays their eggs in other birds nests.

The brown, spotted egg is a Brown-headed Cowbird's egg in a Dickcissel nest. Picture belongs to MDC Discover Nature 

The eggs did not belong to Brown-headed Cowbirds either.

This is the bird, a couple of days after hatching

These are baby Bluebirds from one of my other boxes

As you can see, the mystery bird is definitely not a bluebird. I have actually had a couple of people comment that the bird looks like a piece of uncooked chicken!

The baby has started to grow some feathers 

With the baby getting older, the time for identification was getting shorter and shorter. 

This is the last time I saw the bird before it fledged

Sadly, we were not able to identify the bird before it fledged (left the nest) and at this writing, I still haven't identified it.  

Parrots on Mother's Day

On Mother's Day, my family took a hike to Carson Nature Center, as per request of my mom. Since we were in the area, we popped into the Barnes and Nobles and meet this lovely character and her owner. 

This is Emily, the rescued African Grey Parrot. 

Her owner, Bill, was very kind and let me hold her. I think she quite enjoyed it, as she refused to get off of my arm and cuddled my sweater. If you noticed in the picture, Emily has plucked off most of her belly and chest feathers. This is mostly due to stress, but there may be other causes, it varies bird to bird. The feathers will probably never grow back as she has repeatedly plucked them, again and again.

Thank you to Bill and Emily for letting me intrude on their peaceful Sunday afternoon!

Neighborhood Nestwatch -Year Two

Today was the second year in a row that Master Bander Meredith McBurney came to my house to band bird as part of Neighborhood Nestwatch. If you don't know what Neighborhood Nestwatch is, here is the official website. smithsonianneighborhoodnestwatch  We caught six birds this year, double the amount last year. Here's a rundown of what we caught, three House Finches, one Lesser Goldfinch, one Red-Breasted Nuthatch, and one Spotted Towhee.

This is our first bird of the morning, the Lesser Goldfinch.

Here is a male House Finch, being show around to some of the kids we invited over for the occasion. 

It was so much fun to have a Master Bander over at my house and to see her in action, in my own backyard. It will be fun to see if the birds we banded today stick around for a while or disappear without a trace.

Happy flying!

Hi there!!!

Hi!

My name is Cairn. Let me tell you a few things about me; I am 13, I want to be an ornithologist(someone who studies birds), I live in Colorado and I love birds.

I fell in love with birds when I was five years old. I was at a bird banding station with my homeschool group and became absolutely enthralled with birds.  I have gone to the banding station every year since. About two years ago, the woman who runs the banding station said I was finally old enough to volunteer.

While I was working at the station, I met a lovely lady who needed a couple of people to monitor bluebird boxes in a gated community.

So now I spend a lot of time with birds and this is my blog about my adventures.

I hope you all enjoy this blog!