A Mystery...

I was happily clicking away outside when Mama Eastern Bluebird stopped for a brief visit to the garden.  I grabbed a few shots and then hurried down to the lower part of our property where the bluebird's current nest is located.  I carefully opened the box and at that moment, both parent birds started dive-bombing me, chattering and swooping over my head.  I managed to get my phone in the box and snap a picture.  By this point, one of the parents had made actual contact with the top of my head, which has never happened in all the years I've been hosting birds in my nest boxes.  So, I beat a hasty retreat so they could back to their nest-tending duties.  It wasn't until I was about 50 feet away that I looked at the image on my phone...and saw only 4 eggs!  From what I can see in the image, the nest is not disturbed and the other eggs look fine.  The box has an excellent predator guard and isn't within jumping distance from any trees.  And Mama is still brooding the remaining eggs.  But what happened to the fifth egg that was clearly seen on my last box check on May 6?  I am at a complete loss. See Extra for the current egg status.

I will need to check the box again in a few days, which I'm not looking forward to since these parents are obviously not happy with me being there.  But I need to find out if any more eggs disappear.  It is possible that the parent birds removed the egg themselves - the theory in that case being that they knew it wasn't viable for some reason.  Definitely a mystery.

The day was otherwise predictable.  I had an extra long FT visit with my parents today.  And I'm insisting it is an early Mother's Day celebration since in my head, Mother's Day is next weekend, not today!  And I'll be flying out for a short visit in just two weeks, so we might as well extend Mother's Day and add an early Father's Day celebration too while I am there.  

It was raining this morning so Jax kept his visits outside fast and efficient.  Hubs and SIL drove several hours to visit their mother's grave, as well as grandparents.  He's on his way home now, with a stop at the grocery to pick up something for an early dinner.  

Tomorrow morning I am having a visitor for what I think will be a fun morning of photography.  She's a therapist at the Physical Therapy clinic I went to several times last year and is new to mirrorless photography and to bird photography.  So I figured our garden with all the bird activity would be a perfect place for her to work on her techniques, and perhaps I can lend some helpful tips along the way.  Always fun to be out shooting, no matter what.

Dark with ginger today.

xo
Debbi