Lizards & Bluebirds

Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 21:38:27 -0400
From: "Emily Smith" hummingbird"at"mebtel.net
Subject: Good news! (And a lizard question)

Hi all,

I'm the person who asked about the viability of an EABL egg that had fallen out of the nest that my husband and I replaced before egg laying had completed (one more egg was laid after). A few folks wrote to me personally, but no one seemed to know the answer.

Well, here it is: all three eggs in the nest hatched yesterday, much to my delight! This is my first ever nest box that bluebirds actually nested in (had tufted titmice fledge out of one a few years ago but no other luck), so I feel like a proud mama myself. My husband and I are having such fun watching mama go in and out of the box and papa standing guard and hunting for food. We live in the woods so never expected to have bluebirds here, but put up a box at woods' edge when we saw a pair poking around in our back yard, and they started building a nest almost immediately. It's rather close to our house (great for viewing from indoors!), so I'm surprised that they were willing to use it, but so far, so good.

However....I do have one more question. Do lizards (smallish ones, about 6" long including tail) eat nestlings? We don't seem to have any of the standard predators around, thank goodness -- no HOSPs, raccoons, cats, snakes that we have seen, bluejays, etc.....but we do have lizards, and today one was on top of the nestbox. Mama EABL, who was out of the box at the time, swooped down and scared him off, but it has me a bit worried. I have no idea if he was just sunning himself or pursuing the smell of tender nestlings! We are about to leave for vacation for 1.5 weeks and I worry about leaving "my" babies alone. Do you think we have cause for worry, and if so, is there anything we can do to prevent lizards preying on the nestlings?

Thanks much!

Emily
Efland, NC
--
hummingbird"at"mebtel.net
http://home.mebtel.net/~hummingbird

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