Can relate Skybird. Having been in construction as a carpenter for many years I've come across many instances where a decision had to be made about nesting birds and projects moving forward. Those can be tough calls to have to make sometimes.

We had a small salmonella outbreak that caused a die-off of some small birds here - Pine Siskins in particular. Apparently, part of the cause may be that folks weren't keeping their feeders clean and filled with fresh seed. There was an article in our local paper about it - I'll provide a link to it below - for anyone interested.

We have fed birds in the past, but no longer do. The neighborhood cats find sanctuary in our fenced yard (so many dogs in our town) and we already get a lot of birds w/o attracting them in. I really enjoy birds, so it would be fun to have feeders, but we still get a lot of birds. Some neighbors feed off and on, which tends to bring in birds to our yard too now and then. Plus their are things growing here that are attractive to birds.

Anyway, I really like birds.

The Robin that has been hanging out as I dig in the vegetable garden (he was getting loads of worms) seems to have found a mate. He/she is hanging with another R now.

Saw a few swallows the other day, so I thought our resident colony was back, but haven't seen any since then. Maybe that group was passing through.

We are near a river and have been seeing Bald Eagles occasionally. Saw one pretty regularly during the early winter - flying the river fishing. Hadn't seen him for a while, then about a month ago I briefly saw a big Bald Eagle with a good sized yearling soaring nearby.

Happy birding,
eatsivyChris

Can you set something uninviting on top of the box so they don't try again?

Pine siskins are so much fun. I have listened to a siskin singing himself hoarse in a small ponderosa pine. In a tree no taller than Skybird - and I've walked completely around the tree looking in, trying to see him, without him dropping a single note to his song ♫

Skybird, you know how tough those robins are, too. If you wait too long to disrupt their nesting activity, they'll beat the tar out of you! Give them a day, and the entire thing will be their idea anyway. They probably already have plans for a move into the neighbor's yard. Trill! flit! flit!

They'll be around to pull worms and be back next year.

digitS'

Years ago, before we came to Colorado, we had a home with a carport, instead of a garage. It was just outside of the kitchen, and it was an older home, so one of the wooden posts that supported it had a small rotten spot near the top. A couple of sparrows built a nest there, and we would watch their activites each spring from our kitchen table. One year, we finally had enough money to repaint the house, and within days I noticed a couple of birds flying in circles around that post. Apparantly the painter had filled in the rotten spot before he painted the post. My husband went out and bought a bird house, and mounted it in the exact spot where their home had been before, and they had a new nest built in no time.

If you rebuild it, they will come ...

Bonnie

Good advice, Bonnie.

DD bought me one of those cute little indoor birdhouses several years ago. My kids are inclined to do things like that for me. (¬_¬)

I'm not much for symbolic, decorative kinds of things so I played dumb - and put it outdoors. Of course, it was too small for the sparrows but it looked okay in the yard for a few years. Then the neighbor kids smacked it with a ball and it shattered.

I took down the big old birdhouse that Little Guy fell out of last year. It was used regularly for ages. However, it was falling apart.

I got an appropriate-sized and cute birdhouse to replace them both but put it in the same place as the too-small one. The sparrows are still ignoring it . . .

Meanwhile, the neighbor who put 8 birdhouses on her garage in Spring 'o8 and had ZERO tenants, moved and abandoned all those artsy houses. I just looked at them and saw 3 birds on 3 houses. As much activity as goes on over there, there's better than 50% occupancy this year.

What we need here more than housing is warmer weather. Without the bugs coming out, there are going to be real problems for these girls & guys setting up housekeeping. No bugs/no babies. At least the forecast for snow was a miss.

d'S'

I built a bird house in 7th grade for a middle shop class. This was an early (and accurate) indication that ol' '52, in this life, was not cut out for finish carpentry work.

My Mom (as Moms do) went ahead and set the no-way-this-meets-building-codes-birdhouse on top the laundry pole, where it stayed for years. Finally removed when the rumors around the neighborhood about being a slum land lord were too much to bear.

My annual battle with the sparrows who want to build a nest over my front porch light has come and gone. Use super soaker to knock everything off, and they go away.

Ivy, I think the only thing sadder than taking down the nesting area now would have been to have had to take it down after the eggs were laid. It must be awful when you have to take down "occupied" nests!

There used to be a lot of bald eagles here when I moved up to this end of town about 15 years ago. It was on the very edge of the developed area and there were big old cottonwood trees along the roads overlooking huge fields of prairie dogs. One morning on the way to work I counted a dozen of them. It was way cool! Now all the old trees are gone and everything is built up and the eagles are gone! At least the Rocky Mountain Arsenalnow wildlife preserveis close enough that they had somewhere to go. Sure wish there were still a few around here to watch! Now I have to watch the bird cams if I want to see eagles!

I was planning to put something on top of the box to keep them away, Bean, but I was so tired when I razed the condo yesterday that I almost dropped the bricks on top of my head when I took down the roof! Today I crisscrossed some of the shims I had used for leveling the roof on top of the box, and Im pretty sure theyre off to other digs. When I took the old nest down I was wondering if the robins might be into recycling, so I put it down in the perennials near the condo site, and today I noticed that the one side of it has disappeared, so I think they are using some of the old building materials in the new nest! Itll be interesting to see if more of the old nest disappears in the next few days. I didnt see them around too much today, but then I was out in the backyard all afternoon. At least they werent hanging out staring at me anymore!!!

If your tree is no taller then me, Digit, Im not sure it even qualifies as a tree! Im 5'3"! Yeah, I know how tough they areand it looks like theyre up, up, and away already. And, oh, yeah! Theyll be back for the worms! Sometimes it gets very frustrating when Im "fixing" the bark mulch over and over and over where the robins have been digging for wormsbut theyre always forgiven! Its fun to have robins around. Im amazed how close theyll get to me when Im out working in the yard. I think were familywhich didnt help when I had to evict them!

Ever since I moved in here the house sparrows have been building a nest in the Euonymous thats growing up the side of the house at the end of my deck, but it made such a mess in the flower bed below it that this past fall I pulled the nest and most of the Euonymous down (and out from under the siding!) I can live without the house sparrows!

At the last house a pair of hairy woodpeckers built a nest in one of the dying limbs in the cottonwood in my backyard! It was fun to watch them the year they nested in it. Before they could come back the next year, the limb fell off of the tree! When it was cut up I saved the section of the limb where they built the nest. I keep thinking maybe some day Ill mount it on a post or something and Ill see if anybody else would like to live in it! It sure is amazing what woodpeckers can do with just their beaks! Maybe you need to hire some woodpeckers to build some nests for you, David!

;-)
Skybird