Who moved babies?

[JHeap]

This happened in my trio house which has been adapted to the two suite (front to back) larger suites No. 1 -6.

5 babies in Compt. No. 6 were born on 5/3. on 5/4 6Y born in Compt. No. 4 and 5Y in Compt. No. 5. During nest check on 5/13, I found 3 DY in Compt. No. 6 and two barely hanging on. There were no signs of injury or mites so I thought maybe parents had abandoned them. I moved one each into Compt 4 and 5 but by the next morning both were dead and I discarded them. All has been fine with Compt. 4 and 5 babies until today.

When I checked the nests today, I found two babies on the BACK side of the house near Compt. 6 back door. Keep in mind, there is no entry from the back. All openings are in the front. These two babies belong to Compt. No. 4. Two more babies were in the front section instead of the nest section of Compt. 4 and two babies were totally missing. The really, really strange thing was that the nest in the back section of Compt 4 was totally, I mean totally cleaned out.

The babies were pretty lethargic but we were able to hand feed them meal worms. I remade the nest in the back section of Compt. 4 and placed all 4 babies back in. I have seen the female bird return but have not seen a male.

Somehow these birds were taken out of Compt. No. 4 and moved to the back side of the house and left on the porch of Compt. 6.

Any ideas what happened?
Where do we go from here?
Do we continue to hand feed and if so, how many worms should we feed a day?

[DebA]

Let's bump this back up to the top. Too weird. So all six entrances on the one side together...so that means for the babies that were on the outside porch on the backside had to be lifted out and around and placed there. They are approx. ten days short of fledging. One nest completely gone. Would raccoons do such odd things? I'm picturing something with hands if you will. Not sure if they eat the babies but while perched on top of the house it maybe dropped two? That could be a long shot.

At any rate I would feed, feed, feed. At least until they thrive or you observe parents taking care of them. I don't know much about meal worms other than if they are alive you need to smash their pinchers or cut them off so they don't eat right through a baby. I do crickets and if you are solo feeding them without help, at that age I would bet it's quite a bit per day. If Mama is feeding I'd start at 20-25 a day until you knew she was meeting their needs.

You had quite a few pair last year so I assume you have other housing? Do you have predator guards? Sorry I'm not much help.

Deb

[Waydog]

Im quite curious to the answer to this too! Wow....

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Sounds so strange, I refuse to comment, something is wrong with the things that are happening. This is not normal.

[Laverne]

I'm sittin' on the fence with this one, too. There's more to this story than we are hearing. There is a predator here and, unfortunately, JHeap; we will need more information to figure out what predator you are dealing with.

[JHeap]

Yes, Deb, it was crazy. These birds had to be taken out of the back compartment, through the front compartment and somehow landed on the back porch. No way they came through the back. All door openings were closed off. It was terrible, One was tangled in the porch railing and we had to destroy the railing to get him free and the other had his little leg through the little 1/4 inch hole that latched the back door of Compt. 6. We had to cut away the door rather than open it. I think this probably happened because they were flailing around. It took us 30 minutes to free them without any harm.

They did not even have feathers yet -- no way they got their on their own. I think it had to have happened that day or they would have been dead in the 90 degree heat. We found them about 4:00 p.m.

We have seen two sharp-shinned hawks working the area. We have lived here 20 years and NEVER seen a raccoon. We also have a dog that is loose and I think would get the raccoon if it came near the back where she sleeps. We do hear an owl in the woods nearby but have never seen it and we are outside by the pool a great deal at night but I think it would have killed them. We have snake guards but have not made the investment yet for owl guards. I have two trio houses each with six compartments and a gourd rack with 12 gourds.

17 pair this year. I haven't updated my numbers but 3 weeks ago I had 41 babies and 51 eggs.

Mom and Dad seem to both be caring for them now but we have been supplementing with mealworms just because I had them in the house for my son's lizards. What is the best supplement?

My son runs for Special Olympics and we have State games out of town this weekend. I am afraid to leave for fear of what I might find when I return.

Still would appreciate people's input. I don't think there is anything I can do last minute today to protect the houses before I leave

[KathyF]

Jheap,
Do you have SREH and have you seen any starlings around? The babies that landed on the back porch *could* have been dropped there by a starling who dragged them out, then perched on top of the house and just dropped them and they happened to land on the back porch. It's a long-shot, but I could see this happening. A crow (if the babies were near the opening), a bluejay or an SY might also be the culprit.

Although, the cleaning out of a nest like this is something I've only seen starlings do....and they're definitely strong enough to carry out a nestling of that size. Usually the problems I have with SY's is them dragging my babies out & dropping them in the field, then hounding the mother until she relents & joins him (this is my own sordid story from last year, that I won't bore you with right now).

I would sit & watch the house closely for a couple of hours to see if you could identify the culprit. Sorry to hear of your losses.

[JHeap]

Kathy,

Yes, we do have SREHs and my husband has rid the area of all starlings. Still have issues with sparrows but at this point, the adult birds seem to do a pretty good job of keeping them away. We did have an issue with one sparrow couple in our gourds and my husband took out the male last week. We have left the nest alone because there were eggs in it and last year we suffered Sparrow rage. The female is still around but her nest is in the gourd rack not the house.

I was wondering if it could have been a PM -- maybe even a parent to the 6 babies that we found dead in Compt. No. 6 the week before?

When I have had issues with sparrows, they have never bothered to totally clean out the nest but rather just built theirs on top of a martin nest. Do you think it is most likely a SY?

By the way -- "long shots" are common in our house! For some reason, we seem to attract "strange" phenomena!

Headed to the pet store this morning. What is the best supplement?

[Doug Martin - PA]

Sorry for your misfortune on this.

It does not sound like a mystery to me.

First something had to go into the compartment. Smaller than a starling. But could have been (a small starling) that fit through SREH.

Second a snake would fit but would eat them in the compartment.

The good old house sparrow will toss eggs and young. It is the likely culprit. It will fit in the hole.
As Kathy mentioned it will pull them out up to the top perch and drop them. They likely rolled to the back side where the sparrow exited with them. I am guessing a sparrow would approach or exit the housing from the direction the babies were found. That is the nearest cover?

My neighbor had 1 pair of Martins a several years back. Unfeathered young were found on the ground and on porch with SREH. It was a sparrow doing the dirty work.

[~Ray~Gingerich]

When all that started in #6 you found 3 dead young and 2 barely hanging on, if 2 babies were still in there but barely hanging on that would suggest that something has happened to the parents. So whatever it is could catch and kill the parents and also move things around. Could it possibly be a cat? I know they will play with their catch sometimes if not hungry. I think maybe a cat could reach into a trio and scrape the nestlings out of a back compartment on the trios.