Where we live used to be a bird sanctuary many years ago, so we have a plethera of all kinds of pretty song birds, etc around. It started with a tiny wren building a nest in the bush by our front door. Me and the kids watched as she carefully aranged every twig, followed by 4 tiny little blue and brown speckled eggs. We watched her set, then hatch the tiny babies, and every day we would secretly peer into the nest which was at eye level to have a gander at the tiny little ones. Then, suddenly one day the featherless little ones were gone. All four of them. Then next was a mocking bird. Again, she built her nest in an adjacent bush and although her nest was easy to peer into, she was much more protective so we were very careful as to not get divebombed. Same thing, 4 tiny babies hatched. Then a few days later, GONE... All four. Nest totally wrecked. Then there were the cardinals. Same thing, nest in a bush, easy to look into. 4 eggs. Hatched. A week later, before they feathered... GONE. We couldn't figure out what in the world was getting all the baby birds. Well- I finally figured it out. We have a bluebird house in the backyard, and I saw a blue jay carrying something large across the yard and drop it. I ran outside to see what it was, and low and behold... an almost fully feathered bluebird chick without a head. A few feet away...was his brother, or sister who had met the same demise. I HATE BLUEJAYS! These bluebird chicks were about the same size as a day old chicken chick. Although I don't have baby chicks right now, it makes me uneasy thinking it could pick off a few chicks from a broody, too. I have never heard of bluejays killing other baby birds. But I googled today, and much to my surprise, they indeed ARE known for being nest snatchers. Thinking about breaking out the old pellet gun. My yard is full of these maniac birds!
