Hi Tweets,

While monitoring the North Wenas Rd. Bluebird trail today, I decided to check
out Hardy Canyon portion, which due to road closure, I'm only monitoring
every other week... When I got to box no. 11 where the Ash Throated
Flycatcher had previously laid 5 eggs, I could hardly believe what I saw...
A female Bluebird had just exited the nest box and when I opened the lid
there were 6 Bluebird eggs.... To make sure man or critter was not the cause
of this surprise, I carefully removed the 6 eggs, then the nest materials.
There were 2 layers and types of nest material; sandwiched between were the
Ash Throated Flycatchers 5 eggs.... Yes the normally docile and timid
Bluebirds had built a nest on top of ATF nest and apparently driven off the
previous occupants.... After carefully rebuilding nest I replaced the 6 BB
eggs... (stay tuned)

Its been an interesting day... Before leaving home we were treated with a
visit by a Lazuli Bunting, a first ever sighting for us here in Cowiche
Canyon.... Our presence at one nest box caused 5 baby Bluebirds to fledge as
we watched from 5 feet away...
We also noted that, as we did last year we have one nest box occupied by a
Mountain Bluebird. That's a 1 to 72 ratio... Observed 43 species today
including a first for the year of several Nighthawks..... Also the number of
fledged Bluebirds already exceeds last years total for this trail....

Donald
BTPICKLE at aol.com
Yakima WA