Noticed this morning that phoebes were starting to build their nest under the eves of my home in Hinesburg.5th year. Kay
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On Sunday, April 20, 2025, 4:52 PM, Maeve Kim <maevekim7...> wrote:
We walked at the Jericho Research Forest today. The pair of phoebes has a nest, and it looked like they were already feeding young! They made a dozen flights back and forth to the next in the fifteen minutes I stood and watched. At first I thought they might be building the nest, but it looked like they were flying out, catching an insect, and then returning to the nest. (I saw an insect only once.) Each time, the adult would stand on the edge of the nest and bend in. Once I thought I saw the head of a chick but I wasn't sure. This is considerably earlier than the "safe dates" for breeding on the sheet we were given during the second VT Breeding Bird Atlas (which lists 5/1 - 8/15), especially for there to be chicks already. But it certainly looked like feeding young. One time, the adult spent several seconds doing something that looked like hitting the insect against the side of the building before bending to the nest with it, but I haven't yet found anything online or in my bird books about this behavior.
Maeve Kim, Jericho Center
