Expert: Bluebird Bob Walshaw - 6/25/2009

Question
QUESTION: We have several 3 days old baby blue birds in a nesting box on our deck. The adults usually visit the nest with food very frequently. I have not seen either adult at all today (early morning to mid afternoon). The babies are crying for food everytime they hear noises. Do you think it is normal that the parents have not visited all day? Do I need to feed them (mealworms) or just wait another day to see if the parents return?


ANSWER: This is a difficult situation, but not unusual. Bluebirds have many predators and a hawk or something else may have gotten the parents. This is why they raise so many young. One Bluebird pair can raise 15 or more young in one season. and if they all survived we would be up to our hips in Bluebirds. There is a reason for predators - they usually get the slower and dumber which keeps the species strong.   

Please don't do anything. Feeding them would be cruel, as they will bond to you, will not learn to forage or to recognize predators and will not survive in the wild. Let nature take its course.

Send your mailing address to me at walshaw1@cox.net and I will send you my free 20 page Bluebird book.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Is there any chance that the parents may show up again or do you feel they never would have left on their own, and are gone?
Is there any way the baies would survive if no one feeds them, they are only 3 days old and are in a nesting box?

Answer
If they don't show up something has happened to them at this time of year. Early in the year if food gets scarce due to a cold snap or extended rain parents may abandon babies to save themselves, but not this late in the year. I have a 100+ box trail and several times a year babies starve to death when parents are lost. It is part of nature and there is nothing you can do. See page 19 in the book about your one box.