A few questions I need help from the experts on

Laura Dore · Wed Jun 13, 2012 7:37 pm

First of all, I noticed one of my new hatchlings on the porch of my Trio. So I lowered the house, it was squirming, and I placed it back in the nest, noticing that it appeared smaller than the others. Next day: came home from work, glanced up, and could see a baby on the porch again. Upon lowering, I found it was the same one as the day before, but this time it was dead. Now to my question; would one of the parents have killed it because it was small or if something was wrong with it?

Next question: had another nest that had 7 eggs. Did nest check and found two eggs on the porch that had been pecked. The other 5 eggs appeared to be OK. But I have not seen the parents for a couple of days now. Would they abandon their remaining eggs? If so, will they still hatch and I could put them in another nest with other babies? I have owl guards and snake guards and starling doors on my houses now, but I'm still losing eggs, darn it!

Is their ANY other way to avoid the heartache of losing my babies/eggs?

jeffwilliams72 · Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:15 pm

It sounds like you have either a House Wren or House Sparrow, piercing and ejecting eggs and babies. If the PM's are harassed enough, by whatever is attacking the nest, they may abandon it.

DebA · Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:25 pm

Well you wanted an expert...here I am. Not!

My experience is that a Subadult male is doing that. I don't think the parents would kill a smaller bird. Did it have any injuries on it? Maybe it didn't survive the tussle yesterday and it died in the nest and the parents moved it away from the nest.

The pecked eggs is something I definitely have seen too. SY males will try to lure the egg laying female away from her mate to him. So he sabotages her nest trying to get a chance.

Another culprit could be house sparrows or starlings. SREH do a lot to deter the starlings but the sparrows are more difficult. I just read on another thread by Kathy F that she witnessed a male subadult pushing out a newly hatched baby and Tony G commented something like it is hard to understand the subbies. We protect them from sparrows and starlings and then they do the same thing.

I guess a nest can be abandoned. Maybe they are around and you just haven't seen them. Bedtime is a good time to observe. Or, maybe something happened to the parents. I've read that for whatever reason they might abandon and start a new nest in your housing. I don't know that I'd move the eggs. Especially if there's a chance mom and dad are still around.

The last question...no. Other than knowing nature has some cruel twists and all you or the birds can do is your best. Hang in.
Deb

tonyg · Thu Jun 14, 2012 1:09 am

My guess it would be a sparrow that is pecking the eggs and possible moving the nestling out. A sy would carry the eggs and baby(s) off most of the time. I have had 3 different nests this year where the sy has carried the eggs out of the gourd. Sad, but it happens. Do your best to keep the sparrows away either by trapping or shooting them.

sully · Sun Jun 17, 2012 1:52 am

I helped a couple of neighbors get started this year. One had 6 and the other had 8 gourds. Lucky both racks filled up. The one with 8 gourds came home one day and found 2 dead babies on the ground and one on the porch. Another gourd had the eggs pecked with very small holes and we finally spotted a house wren. This is my 18th year and that's my first experience with house wrens.

Emil Pampell-Tx · Sun Jun 17, 2012 6:19 am

Laura Dore wrote: Is their ANY other way to avoid the heartache of losing my babies/eggs?

The answer it no, there is no way to completely avoid it. That is nature, and nature is cruel quite often. As you get more involved with nature, you will notice the same thing in all birds and animals.

There is a whole lot however that you CAN do. You can trap and shoot the sparrows & starlings, use a snake guard, kill the mites, fix up the housing so that owls cannot reach the babies, etc.

It sounds to me like sparrows may be at your place. Try to rid the site from sparrows, which seems impossible. If you keep trapping, and use the correct trapping procedure, and the correct traps, then you will greatly decrease all of the trash birds.

jeffwilliams72 · Sun Jun 17, 2012 9:12 am

Sully, the Hoosier HOWR's must have a meanstreak this year, I had one pierce and eject 4 BB eggs, then it pierced 1 PM egg, and launched a baby PM out of a gourd(it survived,glad I'm doing checks)
I have always read of this behavior, but not experienced it til this year.
Amazing how such a tiny bird can pull babies out!!!!