With Bluebirds Sometimes Two's A Crowd

Early this Spring I bought this bluebird feeder.  The advertisement was that bluebirds and only bluebirds would be smart enough and the right size to go into the feeder.  I also bought bluebird nuggets - tasty little treats sure to attract bluebirds.

For several weeks no bird went near the feeder and I began to feel like the gullible consumer that would swallow anything including the theory that bluebirds would enter an enclosed space to get bluebird nuggets.

I also spread some bluebird nuggets and meal worms around the ground and soon realized that the meal worms were being eaten but not the nuggets.  So I emptied the nuggets out of the feeder and spread a few meal worms on the platform of the feeder and even in the doorway.  And to my joy and surprise, they started using the feeder like the private lunch counter it was meant to be.

I really enjoyed watching them enjoy their meal worms and I often wondered if more than one would ever go in there at a time.  Here's a bluebird with a meal worm in his beak.



And here's a bluebird surveying the situation.  This is how they poise to enter their nesting box also.


First they check it out.  Then they jump in and start eating.

One day while watching them, I saw the situation I'd been hoping for.  It looked like there could be two in the feeder at once except that the first one seemed to take serious exception to the possibility of the second one coming in.

The second one hesitated but only momentarily.

 Before he made his move to enter.

Once in, he ignored the angry glare of first comer and dug right into the meal worms.

Finally #1 had had enough and decided to make her getaway while a frustrated robin who can't get to the meal worms tries one more time.

The interloper only thinks about his transgression for a moment before digging in once again.

 Finally he's had his fill.

And decides to vacate the lunch counter himself.  Here he is just leaving the floor of the feeder.

And once again, all is quiet at the bluebird lunch counter - at least until the next drama.
 

Actually I'm very surprised that the #1 bluebird was so unfriendly toward the #2 bluebird.  I'm wondering if we might not have two nesting pairs here.  Especially since I've seen what appears to be two different sets of fledglings.  I'll be curious to see if that's the case.