Wednesday, June 03, 2009

More than Bluebirds use Bluebird Boxes


During the winter I built four Blue Bird boxes and placed them about my home. Having read that Bluebirds are territorial I was well aware that I was placing them much too close together but I didn’t care as other species would possibly use them.

Currently three of the four boxes are occupied and none by Bluebirds. A pair of Tree Swallows was the first to claim a box. Sunday afternoon I set up the camera with the 100-400mm, tripod and flash near the nest. Soon the pair began doing flybys and after a few minutes the female perched momentarily.

After a few more passes she returned and perched allowing me a few minutes of photography before disappearing into the box. I’m pleased to have attracted these beautiful acrobatic speedsters to my home for not only are they quite pretty but they also consume vast quantities of flying insects.

These birds fly over our rear deck frequently in the evenings and I was surprised to see male carpenter bees chase them for a short distance. The swallow’s flight is much faster than that of the carpenter bee and after only a short pursuit the bees return to the territory they are defending. As for the swallows, they seem to pay no attention to the pursuing bees.


7 comments:

Ruth's Photo Blog said...

With Tree Swallows in a nest box you should have some great photo opprtunities.Looking forward to lots of pictures.
Blessings,Ruth

Elaine said...

Nice capture!

Unknown said...

All of these birds are beautiful. I especially love the wax wing.

Tom said...

Building the boxes as been well rewarded Salty... I to look forward to seeing more shots of them. As for 'Carpenter Bees... I'm off to google to read about them.

Tom :O)
My daily blogs: Wiggers World and Pictures & Words

Montanagirl said...

Great photo of the Swallow. They are such a pretty bird.

FAB said...

Great to see that your effort in providing 'top class' homes has paid off. Super capture Coy.

Leedra said...

I agree with you, I don't care which bird uses the box, just that one does. Guess I might care if I got House Sparrows, because that mean they had killed a Bluebird. We also have enough houses that the Bluebirds take several and the Tree Swallows take several. It seems then they swap which one they use. The Tree Swallows let me get closer than the Bluebirds do, so I sure don't complain about them.