Ostdrossel™

View Original

Here we go :)

On this sunny Monday morning, Lagertha, the Bluebird lady, went into the nestbox and stayed there a bit longer than usual. I was hoping the day would finally have come, and I was right. Shortly before 9 in the morning, she laid a beautiful blue egg, starting a new clutch that will hopefully be successful. If things go normal, she will lay an egg per day from today until she is done with the clutch. During that time, she will only occasionally check on the eggs and not sit on them permanently. Once her clutch is completed (usually between 3 and 5 eggs), she will start incubating, meaning that she will sit on the eggs, warming them with her brood patch, a skin fold on her belly (you can see some sort of a “crevice” on many birds right now - that is where it is) and turning and moving them to incubate them evenly. She only starts incubating when her clutch is complete so that all chicks will hatch on the same day. Most of the times, that works perfectly, some times there are some that lag a bit behind.