This interesting video was filmed by Loretta Grunewald of Shenandoah, VA on on June 3, 2006. To watch it, you will have to click on the snapshot above, and then click once more on the video which is actually stored in Photobucket. The female that appears to the right had started a second nest the day this fight occurred. We generally view bluebirds as gentle creatures, but they can also be very territorial.
She laid an egg on June 12th, but it was punctured (by a House Sparrow? The competing male bluebird? I have not heard reports of bluebirds puncturing the eggs of other bluebirds but I suppose it is possible.) No further eggs were laid.
On June 16th, she revisited the box, but did not stay.
On June 20th, the male who won the fight in the video was with her building a nest in a different box.
On July 4th, the first egg was laid in this new nest.
She now has a clutch of four eggs, and the second male has not been seen in the area.
You cannot begin to preserve any species of animal unless you preserve the habitat in which it dwells. Disturb or destroy that habitat and you will exterminate the species as surely as if you had shot it. So conservation means that [we] have to preserve forest and grassland, river and lake, even the sea itself. This is vital not only for the preservation of animal life generally, but for the future existence of man himself—a point that seems to escape many people.
-Gerald Durrell, The Nature Conservancy
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Bluebird Battle
