Brewer's Nest

This is a Brewer’s Blackbird nest with 5 eggs that I photographed today at the Elkton Community Education Center.  We went back today to check on the progress of the nest building going on with the Bullock’s Oriole and the Western Kingbird that we had found on Wednesday. We were happy to find the females still in the process, and we noticed something else, only one female would be working on her nest at a time, and when she was there, the male would be standing guard close by. They are only about twenty feet apart in the same tree.  Wednesday when we were here before, a pair of Brewer’s Blackbirds were also hanging out in the same tree, but at one point I saw one of them make a dash into the shrub row close by.  Today I went over to the shrubs and started looking, finally sticking my head clear into the shrubs and that’s when I found the nest.  I wanted to photograph the nest and eggs, and it took some perseverance as the rest of the Brewer’s showed up, about eight in all, protesting and dive bombing me.  We now have three nests to watch, all within in a few yards of each other.