Black Rat Snake
Let me start this way, this Black Rat Snake was not hungry anymore…
Yesterday evening Joan called me out of the house, telling me that there was a young bird in the grass. Suddenly we saw at least one more nearby and a pair of adult Eastern Bluebirds highly excited calling them into the woods. This was near at one of our nest boxes but we didn’t know that they used the box. Actually we didn’t see a bluebird near the house since last year, not even during the winter time. That was the first surprise. While I quickly snapped a picture of one of the fledglings resting on a pile of branches in the woods, Joan discovered the snake with one of the young bluebirds already half swallowed. This explained the upset of the parents a little better. It was a sad moment but we do not interfere with the course of nature. This is so unbelievable, because the last time I had one of these powerful large constructors in front of the lens in our woods was 2013!
Eastern Bluebird fledgling
We only can guess what really happened. The Black Rat Snake probably approached the nest box and the parents panicked and called the fledglings out. Maybe they were not ready yet. However, the snake had its meal. Today I heard and saw the bluebirds again briefly in the timber. It wasn’t clear how many of the young ones made it, but it sounded like the parents were not alone…