Problem- need advice

gsimpson · Tue Jun 09, 2009 2:28 pm

During our nest check on Sunday, our ASY male/SY female had 4 eggs. Our SY pair still only had 5, which is what they've had for about 4 days. I did my nest check last night after work and discovered 3 eggs gone out of the ASY/SY nest, with the pair no where around. I found a partial egg shell on the ground (80% shell) about 25 feet from the nest. No other signs of trauma...nothing in the nest bowl. I have not had a HOSP problem that I know of and both nests are in gourds with crescent openings. We did see a house wren removing nest material from one of the other gourds on Sunday. Will they peck eggs? and remove them from the nest?
We do not have a predator guard up yet.

We do have a bachelor SY that has claimed one of the other gourds, but has not exhibited any aggressive behavior. He has been here for about a month now.

The pair finally came home last night, late, and were out and gone this morning when I left for work. The SY pair seems to be OK. I plan to check nests again tonight and may consider moving the last egg?

We have a wren house (with babies about to fledge) outside our door.

Any thoughts or advice is appreciated as this is our first go around with eggs.

John Miller · Tue Jun 09, 2009 2:43 pm

This is a dilemma. Others will chime in...probably the wren or a SY male dumped the eggs. Now what to do? I'd leave the one egg for quite a while. I don't know if the pair will incubate it..buy maybe. Do you know the projected hatch date? It's possible it's nearly ready. I have seen a pair raise a single chick.

If the pair considers this to be a nest a failure, they may re-lay -- even with the egg there -- and if they started relaying maybe 10 days from now..I've projected out a fledge date of about Aug. 7 -- give or take a few days. That's a little late, but my last clutch last year in St. Louis fledged Aug. 12, so they can nest pretty late.

John

KathyF · Tue Jun 09, 2009 2:45 pm

Gregg,

Check out these threads:
we had this discussion on the PMCA forum last year....maybe this will help.

http://www.purplemartin.org/forum/viewt ... light=wren

another one:
http://www.purplemartin.org/forum/viewt ... light=wren

gsimpson · Tue Jun 09, 2009 4:15 pm

John,
She had 1 egg on Friday 6/5 and 4 on Sunday when I checked so she was possibly still laying. I will check tonight to see if she has laid anymore.
The other pair is finished and the approx. hatch date is 6/20.

Kathy,
We had been having a problem with the wrens in our BB boxes and decided to put up a house for them on the patio about 3 years ago. I had to discourage a persistant male this year who was bound-and-determined to nest in one of the BB boxes. I finally won. The wrens took to the house on the patio and we fledged 5 BB about a week ago. Sunday was the first I had seen a wren around the gourds. I believe it is a different male.

I will post an update after the nest check tonight.

gsimpson · Wed Jun 10, 2009 7:04 am

We checked her nest last night and she still only had the one egg. The male was in the gourd guarding and she was no where around until just before dark, when she joined him. This morning, he was there again and I couldn't tell if she had left or not.

My wife had a thought...We had a real bad storm go through early Monday morning. She wondered if the eggs might have gotten damaged during the storm and removed by the parents.

We will continue to monitor.

gsimpson · Fri Jun 19, 2009 8:06 am

Update:

The ASY/SY pair has renested in an adjacent gourd. I checked last night and she has laid 2 eggs in the last two days. He has been bringing green leaves. The other nest was abandonded and the egg was covered with leaves and other nest material.

The other pair's 5 eggs are due to hatch this weekend.

I guess we'll have our broods spread out. Do we need to do anything special for the late clutch?

These will be our first babies ever.