Update no. 1 on Parc Perlière's Nesting Bluebirds

          Parc Perlière's Eastern Bluebird family is expecting!  On Thursday, April 4, the female laid her first egg and we watched and recorded the event via a live video feed!  Watch the video below of Mama Bluebird laying her first egg.

Video by Carl Miller -- Parc Perlière -- Charleston, SC -- April 4, 2013

     

            Monday, April 8, she laid her 5th and final egg and began incubating.  Eastern Bluebirds, like most songbirds and duck species, generally begin incubating on the same day when the last egg is laid.  This allows that all the eggs should hatch on the same day and also hopefully fledge on the same day and probably makes child-rearing easier on the parents.  With help from Birds of North America -- an encyclopaedic-like, online resource for birds' life histories sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the American Ornithologists' Union, we estimate that the eggs will hatch on the 14th day of incubation -- Sunday, April 21.  Then we will watch them for 17 days as they change from naked tiny, big-eyed chicks into fat, feathered, funny kids.  You can see the size changes from one day to the next -- truly amazing!  They are expected to fledge on either Wednesday, May 8th or Thursday, May 9th.  Does it show that we are  excited?!  We will continue to update you on the progress of this growing family with more video and photos as we are able to capture them.

Citation:

Gowaty, Patricia Adair and Jonathan H. Plissner. 1998. Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/381