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Tom Grey | all galleries >> Birds -- Sequences >> Dark-eyed Junco nesting history, 2004-2019 > Dark-eyed Junco, Oregon, incubating female, 2018
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15-JUL-2018 Tom Grey

Dark-eyed Junco, Oregon, incubating female, 2018

Nest in front door wreath

This nest is at the bottom of a wreath hanging on the front door of our house. A pair of juncos built it over three days or so in early July, after which more than a week passed without our seeing an adult bird near the nest or any eggs in it. We were about to give up on the possibility of nesting when a single egg appeared in the nest on July 13. A second egg was in the nest early in the morning of July 15, and I took this picture of the female parent sitting on the eggs later that morning. A third and final egg appeared July 16.

Here's the sign we put up in the entrance way to our front door to protect the nesting adults and their offspring from disturbance: http://www.pbase.com/image/167814271. The adults successfully fledged three young birds, the last one leaving the nest on the morning of August 9.

A pair of juncos, probably these same birds, had successfully nested in a planter on the side deck of our house about 20 yards from the front door in late April 2018, producing four young. Here's a picture of two of these young birds at our back yard fountain after fledging in early May: http://www.pbase.com/image/167424971. Juncos often have more than one broods in a season.

Juncos had previously nested in a (different) wreath on our front door in 2015; see http://www.pbase.com/tgrey/image/160507247 . In that year the nest was parasitized by cowbirds, and the junco pair incubated and fledged a single juvenile cowbird.


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