Oddities

This year, we have the same sad situations with a male who has avian pox on one of his legs, clutches with tiny sterile eggs, one case of cowbird parasitism, house sparrows preventing bluebirds from nesting, heavy mite loads, successive raccoon predation, a male banded as a chick in 2015 dead on the road.

But we also have some new bizarre events, such as the one-legged male in my previous post.

- Non-rewarded dedication: We named another male Mr. Unlucky because in spite of his dedicated behavior to his lady, clutch, and territory, she keeps laying eggs that she eventually abandons to build a new nest on top. They are now at their 5th attempt.

- Ancient but not senescent: Our oldest male (at least 8 years old, banded as adult in 2009) is still successfully breeding in the same box, although his partners have not had lives as long.

- Stuffed slow snake: A black rat snake that rested in a nest box for several days after a meal of chicks that were ~10-days old. It stayed in the box for at least 5 days before we decided to take it out. It was not cold. It was alive, but it wouldn't move away.

- Missing: Some clutches that seem healthy at day 7 have missing chicks at day 13. Predation seems unlikely because snakes don't eat 1-2 chicks to leave the others alive; raccoons and cats disturb the nest... Maybe the chicks died in the nest and the parents are strong enough to carry them out and away from the box. What is the maximum size/age they can carry away? I wonder.

- Delayed incubation: It is not uncommon at the beginning of the nesting season, when it's still cold at night, for females to delay incubation of their newly laid eggs. But this is the first time that I observe a 4-day delay in the middle of June, when temperatures are high and fairly constant. Even stranger is that the female had previously raised clutches (this season and last year) on a normal schedule.