Out of the 10 nest boxes I have in my yard, 7 are occupied by downies at night, all year long. This is not uncommon. They are quite stealthy about going in there, though... I have never seen one enter, but if you go over to the box at dusk with a flashlight (in summer time) and make a click click with your tongue, they will pop their head to the hole to see what the commontion is... its too funny.

I get downies roosting in my boxes, and they often "excavate" the interior. I'd just leave it. I do put hole guards on the hole tho so they don't enlarge it. Here is a link that might be useful: Downy bio

Thinking further about it, I don't need to prop open the cold frame, which would make a 4-foot long narrow opening. I have two ventilation holes (2 by 4 inches) in the back wall, blocked by hardware cloth and 16 inches above the ground. All I need to do is remove the hardware cloth, then install hole reducers to reduce the holes to 2 by 2 inches each. Each hole reducer can also support a shelf/perch INSIDE the box, which will allow the birds to check the interior after entering. The inner shelf will also restrict the downward reach of any predator paws. The box is so big, though, that birds can easily stay out of reach of any predator paws. I thought of putting the cold frame up on the railing of the rear deck, where in a corner position, the railing would support three corners of the frame, needing only one temporary leg for the last corner -- but my wife vetoed that idea (too unsightly). (It was designed to be portable, in three stackable sections of about 30 pounds each, with a hardware cloth plus porous plastic bottom.) We have no snakes of any kind in this suburban area. Rats and mice are under control, because since I have been killing them, there are no more signs of them trying to tunnel into my shop/storage area, which has a dirt floor. But just in case, I can add a smooth hard material to the back wall of the cold frame so that rodents cannot climb up to the entrance holes. The other possible predators are wandering cats (common) and racoons (rare). The inner shelf/baffle will stop them. I have st least a dozen small plastic pots that I can lay sideways in the cold frame in case some birds would like to roost in them. A bed of leaves and perching branches are the other options to offer. As for the 'wren' nestbox, the downy has enlarged the opening to 1 1/4 inches. I cleaned out old twigs and put a pile of sawdust in the bottom.

mike_kaiser And genes, Thank you so very much for responding. Sorry about my delay with a response but I was waiting for my actual laptop to get back. Was on another computer yesterday while my son had my laptop for work (he dropped his) but wanted the actual laptop with the problem in case there was someting else suggested here to try. I went to the product page as you suggested, mike_kaiser, but the driver listed is exactly the same one that is listed in my Device Manager so I didn't bother with that. No exclamations on any of the things in device manager---I even clicked each one to open each one all the way to see what was inside each main title. Yes, I rebooted several times. I even raised my virtual memory because I had received a message that it was too low while I was scrolling around Ebay. I rebooted after raising the virtual memory but still the little slot won't acknowledge the SD card. The little light on the slot does flicker. I guess that means it's working? genes, No, I haven't tried another SD card. But yesterday my neighbor took my SD card and loaded the photos on her computer. She said she is coming over today with a little mini flash drive (?) that I can stick in my laptop and download the photos to this laptop that way. This means the SD card itself isn't broken, right? Again, Thanks to both of you for responding!