3 dead chicks in 2 days....any ideas as to why?

[Heddi]

Hello!

I've got a resident group of chicadees, starlings, and wrens in my yard, and they all seem to live in one of two lilac trees that I have.

In the past 2 days, i've found 3 dead chicks--2 of them were naked and new and looked like they just hatched and perhaps fell out of the nest or were kicked out. The 3rd was a bit more developed, with slight feathers, but still relatively small and new. None of them look mauled or mangled, so I'm not leaning towards them being drug out by cats.

They were all laying quite close to the lilac tree, but I've not seen any evidence of nests or broken egg shells around.

I guess I'm not really sure if there's even anything I can do, but was wondering if this was common for so 'many' (in my view) dead chicks during such a short amount of time.

Also---where do Chickadees build nests? Are they tree nesters, or grass nesters? I've not really been able to find any information about this, and I think they're chickadee chicks (based on my completely uninformed and unknowledgeable assessment of naked new chicks).

Thanks!

hed

[amazona]

1. chickadees are cavity nesters

You can provide nestboxes or they will use bluebird nestboxes.

If the babies had an illness and died, the parent birds may have removed them. I think if the Starlings had removed them, the Starlings would have tried to eat them rather than just throwing them out whole, because Starlings are pretty omnivorous. But I'm not 100 percent sure that a Starling wouldn't sometimes just clean baby birds out of a cavity when taking it over.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[Goldeneye]

2. ....

ed...sorry amazona...meant to respond to the original post.

[Goldeneye]

3. If it turned out not to be a chickadee

but a bird that builds cup-nests instead it could be parasitism. Cowbirds and Cuckoos (and probably some others) lay eggs that hatch earlier and push the other eggs or chicks out of the nest. I don't know that you have cuckoos, but cowbirds are pretty widespread.

I'm not sure that the timing is right and if you are relatively sure they are chickadees, this probably isn't what's happening because Cowbirds and Cuckoos wouldn't put their eggs in a cavity nest.

[amazona]

4. your post got me thinking

...and I just googled something very sad. "Yellow-Billed Cuckoos are considered extirpated in Washington." I think you are right to suggest if parasitism is involved, it's likely a cowbird such as Brown-Headed Cowbird. I don't think U.S. Cuckoos do all that much parasitism any way compared to the European cuckoo.

On a happier note, I did find a fantastic website for the Original Poster that seems to tell all about the birds of the Washington state which is her home state listed in her profile.

http://www.birdweb.org/birdweb/home.asp

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[Goldeneye]

5. Hey, thanks for the link.

I'm headed to school now, but I'll check it out later for sure.