I checked the bluebird box today and found it empty. And thus began my detective work to figure out what got the babies. Of course my first thought was a snake…but a snake wouldn’t have left a pile of feathers on the ground.

So I figure that something either pulled the birds out of the box or they fledged and were attacked on the ground. The nest was soaking wet, no doubt from the torrential rains we’ve gotten over the past six days, so I wonder if water had something to do with it?

But then tonight I found this neat Web site with daily photos of baby bluebirds. I went back and looked at the dates on my images and realized that my bluebirds would have been darn close to fledging. So I’m just going to pretend that the babies flew away to start their new lives somewhere near the farm.

I cleaned out the old nest and left the box open to air out in the sun. I have hope that Mr. and Mrs. may return to raise another brood this summer.