I just did this too! They will abandon the nest if you don't take care of it, ASAP!! tonight if you can!. You need to do a nest change. There is good info on the sialis site about nest changes and how to do it. I got as much dried grass as I could and put it in an empty butter container. I tried to line it with pine needles, but I don't know where my female got hers?!! It took a few days, but then the second egg arrived along with a third! She was incubating a few days until a wren, I think, got two of them. Now they built another nest in my other box.. after all that work!! then you have to take care of the ants. They say grease the pole.. I put the liquid ant killer at the base on a plastic lid covered with a larger lid.. I hoped it would distract them from the nest, but I can't tell for sure if it worked since they moved.. but I didn't see any more ants in there. Good luck and keep us posted!

We were lucky enough to have chickadees use the nest box in our yard, and from as far as we can tell the babies have successfully fledged (we didn't see it, but I saw a parent bring food one morrning and they were gone by evening). We didn't take the nest box down yet and have seen a chickadee sticking its head near the opening. How likely is it another set of chickadees would use the box? If it's possible is it better to remove the old nest? Thanks. -- Lori

Lydia 1959...As far as it's known, from decades of research by the PMCA and other organizations, the Purple Martins in the eastern half of the U.S. nest only in man-made cavities, and near human activity. Since the times before Columbus they have "imprinted" on humans. The eastern Native Americans lured them to their villages and gardens by setting natural gourds on sticks and dead trees. They knew when the Purple Martins were near, the flying insects were kept at bay. There is a small scattering of PMs on the west coast, and they seem to be nesting in single family groups around piers. There was a lot of excitement when a colony was discovered nesting in drainage pipes under highway overpasses around the Sacramento area. Still, for the vase majority of the Purple Martins, and the entire eastern population, it's man made housing. You can see the problem since fewer and fewer people are offering, and safely managing, housing for them. The PMs, along with our native blue birds, started declining in the 1950s and were fast approaching endangered status. The main causes were lack of housing being offered to them, loss of wooden fence posts in the case of the blue birds, and the explosion of the imported, non-native English House Sparrow that will kill/destroy any cavity nester, its eggs and its chicks, that it can find...PMs, bluebirds, chickadees, woodpeckers, nuthatches, etc. all fall prey to these non-natives. So, loss of habitat, explosive numbers of non-native competitors, and a lack of well-managed housing not being offered is the main culprits of the decline of our native cavity nesters. I wish you could come visit. I sit under the feeder tree each morning with my tea and listen to the beautiful chatter, chortles, and songs of the PMs. They're here for such a short time, but I try to enjoy them enough to last the rest of the year. They travel to and from southern Brazil each year to raise their families. They come back to the same colony each year. They are magical!

We have been blessed to have bluebirds nest in our bluebird house for several seasons now. When I noticed the male and female tending to the box this spring, I took a photo of the nest which showed 5 perfect bluebird eggs (4/29). Two - three days later we noticed that the pair was no longer tending to the nest. The male began to charge at his image in our windows all day every day. The female could be seen at the suet feeder from time to time but not at the bluebird house. A closer check of the house revealed a clump of pinestraw protruding from the entry and so I checked the nest. It appeared that the eggs had been stolen (by raccoons?) and only a small piece of shell was left. The birds were no longer tending to the nest and so I cleaned it out and the pole was greased with cayenne pepper to deter raccoons. Another few days went by and I noticed that the pair was tending to the box again. I waited a few more days and took a photo on 5/10 of the new nest which showed 4 white eggs in it. Ever since then the female bluebird has been diligent in tending the nest, but the male rarely goes to it. I checked the box again today 6/7 and the eggs have not yet hatched. It seems that the hatching is overdue. Are these indeed bluebird eggs? I will avoid removing anything from the nest but I'm just curious about might be going on here. Any advice? The photo from 5/10 is attached.