I love hosting Tree Swallows. They are beautiful and make the loveliest sounds. The thing with Tree Swallows is you have to be patient. They may make a nest and not lay for weeks. It all depends on weather since they are aerial insectivores. They need lots of flying insects to feed their young. You can't supplement them with mealworms if the weather turns bad. I do the same for them as for the Blues. As soon as the first egg is laid, put up the sparrow spooker. They are much less timid than most birds. When you do a nest check, the female may just sit and look at you. I just quietly tell her "sorry for disturbing you", and gently close the nest box. The only thing I don't like is once the babies fledge, they will leave and you won't see them again until next season. I miss them. I love having them around.

I do everything as I do for Blue Birds but dont put up a Wren guard. It interferes with the way they "pinch hit" in feedeing & such. Yes when they leave....they are gone. I usually see a group of them before they leave for the season and I always hope I am seeing the parents and babies but no way to really tell. Beautiful birds to host.

Thank you Kendra and Lisa!

TRES are fun to have. I guess I am lucky in that when my TRES fledge they stick around for at least a week or so. TRES tend to flock together later is Summer though and leave together so since we usually have about 10 nesting pairs around here, I think they wait until all are ready to leave and then go. They fledglings will sit high in trees and call for their parents to feed them. The adult TRES swoop in and feed them while fluttering near them teaching them to eat on the wing. TRES fledgling are extremely cute too.

TRES fledglings..

AH great photos dz! :)

those pics are amazing dzyg!! I love the TRES

Those really are great pictures dzyg. How cool that yours hang around long enough to get a picture.

Dzyg, those are very cute pictures! It seems fledglings look very different from adult tres, fledglings are very rounded.

New development: the day after the TRES came, a pair of blue birds showed up. The BB and TRES have been fighting for three days now. Nobody is building a nest, just flying around. Don't know when this is going to end.

I do have two boxes, a few apart.

I mean " a few feet apart"

How many feet? 25 to 30 is good for pairing. Let them duke it out and they should both settle for a box. In my experience it is usually the EABL who gets to the box and by the time the TRES arrives the EABL are so busy nest building that they are less defensive of the 2nd box and let the TRES have it.

The boxes are about 8-10 feet apart. I read it somewhere that put boxes back to back so both bb and tres can use it at the same time, I couldn't do it back to back,this is the compromise.

BB and TRES are still fighting, this is the 4th day now. I only see the male bb alone for the past couple of days, but there are 2-4 TRES at times. The male BB is very cool, he stays on top of box unmoved while TRES taking turn dive bomb him.

sara, I once had boxes paired at 15 feet apart. Neither TRES nor Blues would let the other nest that close to them. I moved them 25-30 feet apart and I often have both nesting now. Close did not work for me but a little further worked just fine.

Ok, hubby moved the box to 23 feet apart. Couldn't get any further, it would be too close to a tree. Hope they can coexist peacefully now.

This morning, TRES pair is guarding the box that was not moved, no BB showed up yet.

Day 6 now. Still fighting. Male bb shows up alone a few times a day, for a few minutes each time, gets TRES very upset, dive bomb him. But TRES are not building nest when bb is not here.

Don't know when this is going to end.

Sara, TRES are known to take forever and a day to choose a nestbox and actually start building a nest. Once they do though, they settle down a lot! Hopefully though it helped by moving them. Are you seeing a female too or just a male bluebird?

Just the male bb. There was a female bb in the first couple of days, then only male bb for the rest of Time. I think the male bb is just being spiteful, He shows up a few times a day, and a few minutes each time, just to get TRES rile up.:-)

TRES spend most of time on my roof top to watch the box. It fits the pattern you described. Since they have been here for 7 days now, I suppose they do not plan on leaving, I hope.

I think most birds are getting a late start this season and TRES do take so long to complete a nest and lay. I think because they only have one brood a season they don't need to rush. Sounds like you've got quite the entertainment to watch. I don't think either species will give up on your boxes, especially if there are no other cavities around.

Update: they finally stopping fighting on the 8th day, May 6.

I heard Tres making noise in the morning of May 6 and looked outside, saw male bb and TRES as expected. But, TRES didn't dive bomb bb as before, they just stared at each other, sometimes just 8 ft apart. No fighting the whole day, bb hang around for a lot longer period of time that day.

May 7th, bb rarely showed up. TRES carried a few straw to build nest, then stopped.

Today, rain. No activity

The way they are going about building nest, I don't think they will ever finish:-(