[Bluebird-babble] unsubscribe

[Kathleen Pignato]

Please unsubscribe us.  Thank you and best wishes.

  _____  

From: bluebird-babble-bounces at denveraudubon.org
[mailto:bluebird-babble-bounces at denveraudubon.org] On Behalf Of
Christina.Mitchell at UCHSC.edu
Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2007 9:08 PM
To: bluebird-babble at denveraudubon.org
Subject: [Bluebird-babble] fledglings & counting nestlings


Hi, all--
 
I have a couple of questions for the more experienced monitors among us. 
 
We have a number of boxes with nestlings in them.  I got pretty confident at
counting the eggs with my telescoping mirror, even when the parents were
making their presence known to me.  But with nestlings, I'm having a harder
time getting an accurate count.  Part of it is that it's just harder to see
those little heads; part of it is that I'm especially aware of the parents'
presence and I try to spend as little time at the open box as possible; part
of it is that I'm a volunteer at a wildlife rehab sanctuary and I hate
setting off that gaping instinct in the nestlings when I don't have any food
to offer them.  The form says to put an X if we can't determine the number
of either eggs or hatchlings.  However, I can usually get a "well, there's
at least 3 beaks there" count.  But that's not really science, now is it?
What do others advise?
 
Also, last weekend (5/18), I counted (about) 4 Juniper Titmouse nestlings,
very tiny but eyes open, looking quite healthy and gaping very nicely.  (The
previous week (5/11), no hatchlings--just eggs.)  This weekend (5/25), the
nest was completely empty.  Birds of North America estimates 16-21 days as
nestlings; if all of the eggs had hatched immediately after I left 2 weeks
ago, and they fledged the second before I got there this weekend, they would
have been about 13 or 14 days old--which seems a tad young.  But since the
nest appeared completely intact and undisturbed, should I just assume that
they got lots of good nutrition and care and are in the extremely early part
of the statistical distribution?  I think the form just asks for the # of
eggs/nestlings found and doesn't ask me to report on fledglings--so maybe I
don't need to worry about this.  
 
Thanks for any advice people have.
 
Tina Mitchell
pinyon-juniper habitat, 7100', 18 miles east of Salida
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: winmail.dat
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 4666 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://denveraudubon.org/pipermail/bluebird-babble_denveraudubon.org/attachments/20070601/4c3fcef1/attachment-0001.bin